The two-day training workshops brought together researchers, clinicians, and other professionals to learn about the Palliative Outcome Scale (POS) family of measures. Experts from around the world shared innovative approaches, latest developments, and essentials of administration, integration, scoring, validation, data capture and interpretation. Over 275 people from 40 countries attended this hybrid event.
Patients and families want their voices to be heard and their needs to be addressed and things like the POS measure help make that a reality.
The POS Family of measures are freely available, validated patient-centred outcome measures which are widely used around the world, including POS, Integrated POS (IPOS), African POS (APCA), and condition specific versions for Dementia (IPOS-Dem) and renal patients (IPOS-Renal). They assess physical symptoms, emotional, psychological and spiritual needs, and needs for information and support. Culturally adapted and translated versions of POS measures are also available with new translations added frequently. In her presentation on the development of POS.
Professor Irene Higginson, palliative and end of life care theme lead and founding professor, Cicely Saunders Institute for palliative and end of life care, detailed how research has showed the value of the POS.
Changes in POS are more sensitive to picking up somebody's deterioration than biological markers…So, why don’t we just ask the person?
This event will affect our use of IPOS and enable us to collect patient reported outcome measures more intelligently. It is incredibly valuable to hear of more resources available and to learn of others’ experiences with IPOS.
Join the mailing list or if you have questions about available versions, please visit https://pos-pal.org/