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Early palliative interventions for improving outcomes in people with a primary malignant brain tumour and their carers

Overview of attention for article published in Cochrane database of systematic reviews, January 2022
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (93rd percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (70th percentile)

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1 news outlet
blogs
1 blog
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24 X users

Citations

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10 Dimensions

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148 Mendeley
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Title
Early palliative interventions for improving outcomes in people with a primary malignant brain tumour and their carers
Published in
Cochrane database of systematic reviews, January 2022
DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd013440.pub2
Pubmed ID
Authors

Anthony Byrne, Anna Torrens-Burton, Stephanie Sivell, Fabio Ynoe Moraes, Helen Bulbeck, Mark Bernstein, Annmarie Nelson, Helen Fielding

Abstract

Primary malignant brain tumours can have an unpredictable course, but high-grade gliomas typically have a relentlessly progressive disease trajectory. They can cause profound symptom burden, affecting physical, neurocognitive, and social functioning from an early stage in the illness. This can significantly impact on role function and on the experiences and needs of informal caregivers. Access to specialist palliative and supportive care early in the disease trajectory, for those with high-grade tumours in particular, has the potential to improve patients' and caregivers' quality of life. However, provision of palliative and supportive care for people with primary brain tumours - and their informal caregivers - is historically ill-defined and ad hoc, and the benefits of early palliative interventions have not been confirmed. It is therefore important to define the role and effectiveness of early referral to specialist palliative care services and/or the effectiveness of other interventions focused on palliating disease impact on people and their informal caregivers. This would help guide improvement to service provision, by defining those interventions which are effective across a range of domains, and developing an evidence-based model of integrated supportive and palliative care for this population. To assess the evidence base for early palliative care interventions, including referral to specialist palliative care services compared to usual care, for improving outcomes in adults diagnosed with a primary brain tumour and their carers. We conducted searches of electronic databases, CENTRAL, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Web of Science, and PsycINFO (last searched 16 November 2021). We conducted searches to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative search terms. In addition to this, we searched for any currently recruiting trials in ClinicalTrials.gov and in the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) search portal, and undertook citation tracking via Scopus. We also handsearched reference lists of potentially eligible systematic review articles to identify any other relevant studies, contacted experts in the field and searched key authors via Web of Science and searched SIGLE (System of Information on Grey Literature in Europe). We included studies looking at early referral to specialist palliative care services - or early targeted palliative interventions by other healthcare professionals - for improving quality of life, symptom control, psychological outcomes, or overall survival as a primary or secondary outcome measure. Studies included randomised controlled trials (RCTs), non-randomised studies (NRS), as well as qualitative and mixed-methods studies where both qualitative and quantitative data were included. Participants were adults with a confirmed radiological and/or histological diagnosis of a primary malignant brain tumour, and/or informal adult carers (either at individual or family level) of people with a primary malignant brain tumour. We followed standard Cochrane methodological procedures for data extraction, management, and analysis. We used GRADE to assess the certainty of the evidence for symptom control, i.e. cognitive function. We identified 9748 references from the searches, with 8337 remaining after duplicates were removed. After full-text review, we included one trial. There were no studies of early specialist palliative care interventions or of early, co-ordinated generalist palliative care approaches. The included randomised trial addressed a single symptom area, focusing on early cognitive rehabilitation, administered within two weeks of surgery in a mixed brain tumour population, of whom approximately half had a high-grade glioma. The intervention was administered individually as therapist-led computerised exercises over 16 one-hour sessions, four times/week for four weeks. Sessions addressed several cognitive domains including time orientation, spatial orientation, visual attention, logical reasoning, memory, and executive function. There were no between-group differences in outcome for tests of logical-executive function, but differences were observed in the domains of visual attention and verbal memory. Risk of bias was assessed and stated as high for performance bias and attrition bias but for selective reporting it was unclear whether all outcomes were reported. We considered the certainty of the evidence, as assessed by GRADE, to be very low. Currently there is a lack of research focusing on the introduction of early palliative interventions specifically for people with primary brain tumours, either as co-ordinated specialist palliative care approaches or interventions focusing on a specific aspect of palliation. Future research should address the methodological shortcomings described in early palliative intervention studies in other cancers and chronic conditions. In particular, the specific population under investigation, the timing and the setting of the intervention should be clearly described and the standardised palliative care-specific components of the intervention should be defined in detail.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 24 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 148 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 148 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 11 7%
Student > Master 11 7%
Student > Bachelor 10 7%
Student > Ph. D. Student 8 5%
Other 7 5%
Other 13 9%
Unknown 88 59%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 24 16%
Nursing and Health Professions 14 9%
Psychology 4 3%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 2 1%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 2 1%
Other 7 5%
Unknown 95 64%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 31. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 08 July 2022.
All research outputs
#1,287,453
of 25,462,162 outputs
Outputs from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#2,746
of 12,766 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#31,718
of 516,531 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#31
of 105 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,462,162 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 94th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 12,766 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 36.5. This one has done well, scoring higher than 79% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 516,531 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 105 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 70% of its contemporaries.