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Content on end-of-life care in major pharmacy textbooks
Thomas C Bookwalter1, Michael W Rabow, Stephen J McPhee
1School of Pharmacy, University of California, 521 Parnassus Avenue, Room C-152, San Francisco, CA 94143-0622, USA. thomasb@itsa.ucsf.edu
Abstract:
The quantity and quality of end-of-life-care (EOLC) information in commonly used pharmacy textbooks were studied. EOLC content in each of eight best-selling pharmacy textbooks was assigned to 1 of 13 domains; there were a total of 104 possible domains for all eight books. Every mention of EOLC was given a score of 2 for "helpful content present" or 1 for "minimal content present." The quantity of EOLC content was assessed by tabulating the raw number of entries. The average number of EOLC-related entries per book ranged from 1.0 (ethics) to 27.5 (natural history). Eighty-one domains (78%) had fewer than 10 entries, 66 (63%) had 5 or fewer entries, and 28 (27%) had 1 entry or none. The overall quality of content was low, especially in the domains of spiritual issues, ethics, and context of care. The results were consistent with findings for medicine and nursing textbooks. A review of eight commonly used pharmacy textbooks revealed inadequate coverage of EOLC.