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Evaluation of the palliative symptom burden score (PSBS) in a specialised palliative care unit of a university medical centre - a longitudinal study

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Palliative Care, July 2018
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (78th percentile)

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Title
Evaluation of the palliative symptom burden score (PSBS) in a specialised palliative care unit of a university medical centre - a longitudinal study
Published in
BMC Palliative Care, July 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12904-018-0342-0
Pubmed ID
Authors

Katharina Fetz, Hendrik Vogt, Thomas Ostermann, Andrea Schmitz, Christian Schulz-Quach

Abstract

The implementation of standardised, valid and reliable measurements in palliative care is subject to practical and methodological challenges. One aspect of ongoing discussion is the value of systematic proxy-based assessment of symptom burden in palliative care. In 2011, an expert-developed proxy-based instrument for the assessment of symptom burden in palliative patients, the Palliative Symptom Burden Score (PSBS), was implemented at the Specialised Palliative Care Unit of the University Medical Centre in Dusseldorf, Germany. The present study investigated its feasibility, acceptance and psychometric properties. The PSBS was rated by nursing staff three times a day over 5 years (N = 820 patients). Feasibility and nurses' acceptance of PSBS were analysed. Structural validity was investigated by principal component analysis. Construct validity was examined via cross-validation with the Hospice and Palliative Care Evaluation checklist. Discriminative validity of the PSBS was analysed by means of Kruskal-Wallis test of patients' performance score. Reliability of the PSBS was evaluated by internal consistency analysis, test-retest and split-half-reliability. Inter-rater reliability was investigated by observer agreement of nurses' ratings of symptom burden within a day. Sensitivity to change was analysed by Wilcoxon test with repeated measures of the PSBS before and after palliative complex treatment. A high degree of acceptance and the feasibility of a high-frequency proxy-based symptom burden assessment approach were demonstrated. There were low rates of missing values and no indications of the adoption of prior ratings. PSBS in its present form demonstrates good structural and construct validity (rs = .27-.79, p's < .001) and high sensitivity to changes in symptom burden (p's < .01, except sweating), but unsatisfactory reliability (α = .41-.67; test-retest: rs = .30-.88; p's < .001; split-half: rs = .69; p < .001; inter-rater: n.s.). The study presents a framework for the post hoc validation of an already existing documentation tool in palliative care. This study supports the notion that PSBS might not be reflective of an overall construct and will therefore require further development and critical comparison to other already established symptom burden instruments in palliative care.

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X Demographics

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 55 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 55 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 6 11%
Student > Ph. D. Student 6 11%
Lecturer 5 9%
Researcher 4 7%
Student > Bachelor 4 7%
Other 6 11%
Unknown 24 44%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Nursing and Health Professions 16 29%
Social Sciences 5 9%
Medicine and Dentistry 5 9%
Computer Science 2 4%
Psychology 1 2%
Other 2 4%
Unknown 24 44%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 9. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 19 December 2018.
All research outputs
#3,610,147
of 23,094,276 outputs
Outputs from BMC Palliative Care
#428
of 1,259 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#69,769
of 327,720 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Palliative Care
#17
of 24 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,094,276 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 84th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,259 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 9.5. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 64% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 327,720 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 78% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 24 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 25th percentile – i.e., 25% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.