Dignity and Quality of Life

What can I do?

Using a tool such as the Patient Dignity Inventory and the The Patient Dignity Question (PDQ) can help you become more sensitive and aware of the person.

To measure symptoms and support needs of a person in your care, you can use The Palliative care Outcome Scale (POS) - available in 11 languages.

You may want to use the EORTC QLQ-C15-PAL questionnaire to assess the quality of life of someone in palliative cancer care.

Pain can compromise quality of life. You can use the following tools to assess pain

• Pain scales in multiple languages (from the British Pain Society)
• Faces pain scale (A new validation, from the International Association for the Study of Pain)
• The Modified Residents Verbal Brief Pain Inventory (M-RVBPI) (298kb pdf) is recommended to assess pain in residents able to communicate
• The Abbey Pain Scale (162kb pdf) or the Pain Assessment in Advanced Dementia Scale (PAINAD) are recommended to assess pain in residents with severe dementia or cognitive impairment - see Pain Management Guidelines (PMG) Kit for Aged Care (1.61MB pdf).

What can I learn?

Rodríguez-Prat A, Monforte-Royo C, Porta-Sales J, Escribano X, Balaguer A. Patient perspectives of dignity, autonomy and control at the end of life: Systematic review and meta-ethnography. PLoS One. 2016 Mar 24;11(3):e0151435.
This review examines how dignity contribuites to a person's identity.

Watch Harvey Chochinov talk about Dignity Therapy, Canadian Virtual Hospice.

What can my organisation do?

Providing a homely or personalised physical environment may be of great comfort particularly if it allows family or friends to stay close to an older person receiving palliative care.