Escala numérica para evaluar síntomas espirituales en cuidados paliativos / A scale to assess spiritual symptoms in palliative care

Background: Spiritual issues are an important dimension of health care, but seldom addressed by professionals. Thus, a scale that assesses the presence and intensity of seven spiritual symptoms was developed. Aim: To validate the instrument in palliative care settings. Material and Methods: The spiritual symptoms scale was applied to 103 patients, aged 59 ± 17 years (58% women), admitted to hospice care in two centers located in Santiago. The reproducibility of the scale was evaluated in 33 patients and its internal consistency and liability in 70. Results: The Fleiss Kappa to assess reproducibility was 0.82 and the analysis of variance had a p of 0.94. Cronbach alpha to assess internal consistency was 0.74. Conclusions: The scale renders similar results when applied by different evaluators and has a good liability. Therefore, it can be a reliable instrument to assess spiritual symptoms in palliative care settings. Further studies would be needed to verify its utility in other settings.

Frecuencia y pesquisa de síntomas en pacientes crónicos en fases avanzadas en un hospital clínico: ¿Existe concordancia entre pacientes y médicos? / Frequency and assessment of symptoms in hospitalized patient with advanced chronic diseases: Is there concordance among patients and doctors?

Physicians tend to over or underestimate symptoms reported by patients. Therefore standardized symptom scoring systems have been proposed to overcome this drawback. Aim: To estimate the prevalence and the diagnostic accuracy of physical and psychological symptoms and delirium in patients admitted to an internal medicine service at a university hospital. Material and Methods: We studied 58 patients, 45 with metastasic cancer and 13 with other advanced chronic diseases. The following scales were used: the Confusion Assessment Method for the diagnosis of delirium; the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS) for pain and other physical symptoms; the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale to assess anxiety and depression. The ESAS was simultaneously applied to patients without delirium and their doctors to assess the level of diagnostic concordance. Results: Twenty two percent of patients had delirium. Among the 45 patients without delirium, 11 (25 percent) had at least eight symptoms and 39 (88.6 percent) had four symptoms. The prevalence of symptoms was very high, ranging from 22 to 78 percent. Pain, restlesness, anorexia and sleep disorders were the most common. The concordance between symptoms reported by patients and those recorded by doctor was very low, with a Kappa index between 0.001 and 0.334. Conclusions: In our sample of chronic patients, there is a very high frequency of psychological and physical symptoms that are insufficiently recorded by the medical team.