A prospective evaluation of Dignity Therapy in advanced cancer patients admitted to palliative care
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Dignity Therapy is a brief, psychosocial intervention for patients with incurable disease. AIM: To investigate participation in and evaluation of Dignity Therapy and longitudinal changes in patient-rated outcomes. DESIGN: A prospective (pre/post) evaluation design was employed. Evaluation questionnaires were completed when patients received the generativity document (T1) and 2 weeks later (T2). Changes from baseline (T0) were measured in sense of dignity, Structured Interview for Symptoms and Concerns items, Patient Dignity Inventory, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer QLQ-C15-PAL (ClinicalTrials.gov number: NCT01507571). SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: Consecutive patients with incurable cancer, ≥18 years, informed of prognosis and not having cognitive impairment/physical limitations precluding participation were included at a hospice and a hospital palliative medicine unit. RESULTS: Over 2 years, 80 of 341 eligible patients completed Dignity Therapy. At T1, 55 patients completed evaluations, of whom 73%-89% found Dignity Therapy helpful, satisfactory and of help to relatives; 47%-56% reported that it heightened their sense of purpose, dignity and will to live. Quality of life decreased (mean = -9 (95% confidence interval: -14.54; -2.49)) and depression increased (mean = 0.31 (0.06; 0.57)) on one of several depression measures. At T2 (n = 31), sense of dignity (mean = -0.52 (-1.01; -0.02)) and sense of being a burden to others (mean = -0.26 (-0.49; -0.02)) improved. Patients with children and lower performance status, emotional functioning and quality of life were more likely to report benefit. CONCLUSIONS: This study adds to the growing body of evidence supporting Dignity Therapy as a valuable intervention in palliative care; a substantial subset of patients facing end of life found it manageable, relevant and beneficial.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".