Abstract
Psychological, existential, spiritual, and social issues cause much suffering and deserve extensive study to understand these concerns more fully and to intervene more effectively. Themes that abound include communication, coping, ethics, the family, caregiving, quality of life, death and dying, psychiatric disorders, suffering, and the many expressions of distress. Many study designs are possible to explore these themes, often with complementary quantitative and qualitative components. This chapter summarizes the psychometric properties of many of the instruments that are commonly employed in such studies and the computer-assisted software packages that assist qualitative analyses. The goal is to strengthen research design and optimize research outcomes to benefit the discipline.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine |
| Editors | Nathan I Cherny, Marie T Fallon, Stein Kaasa, Russell K Portenoy, David C Currow |
| Place of Publication | New York NY USA |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Pages | 1182-1193 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Edition | 5th |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780199656097 |
| Publication status | Published - 2015 |