ArticleThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2021
Implementing advance care planning in heart failure: a qualitative study of primary healthcare professionals.
Article in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 36 citations in OpenAlex.
- What helps or hinders the communication of poor prognosis between secondary and primary care? A systematic review with narrative synthesis.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2025Pooled it
- Experiences and perspectives of healthcare professionals implementing advance care planning for people suffering from life-limiting illness: a systematic review and meta-synthesis of qualitative studies.BMC palliative care · 2023Pooled it
- Barriers and facilitators to advance care planning implementation: a qualitative interprofessional study in the Spanish public health and social care system.BMC palliative care · 2026Article
- Provision of palliative and end-of-life care by community health nurses: A scoping review on the challenges and potential solutions.International journal of nursing studies advances · 2026Review
- Measurement instruments in advance care planning: A systematic review of psychometric properties.International journal of nursing studies advances · 2026Review
- Perceived acceptability of a prototype toolkit to support patients and informal caregivers to express their perspectives in palliative care conversations.PEC innovation · 2025Article
- Experiences of using the Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment (ReSPECT) in English general practice: a qualitative study among key primary health and social care professionals, patients, and their relatives.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2025Article
- Implementing advance care planning in palliative and end of life care: a scoping review of community nursing perspectives.BMC geriatrics · 2024Article
- When should Home-visit nurses initiate end-of-life discussions for patients with Organ failure and family caregivers? A qualitative study.BMC nursing · 2023Article
- Actual timing versus GPs' perceptions of optimal timing of advance care planning: a mixed-methods health record-based study.BMC primary care · 2022Article
- Views and experiences of young people, their parents/carers and healthcare professionals of the advance care planning process: A summary of the findings from a qualitative study.Palliative medicine · 2022Article
- Unmet Needs in Patients With Heart Failure: The Importance of Palliative Care in a Heart Failure Clinic.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAdvance care planning (ACP) can improve the quality of life of patients suffering from heart failure (HF). However, primary care healthcare professionals (HCPs) find ACP difficult to engage with and patient care remains suboptimal.
aimTo explore the views of primary care HCPs on how to improve their engagement with ACP in HF. DESIGN AND
settingA qualitative interview study with GPs and primary care nurses in England.
methodSemi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 24 primary care HCPs. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.
resultsThree main themes were constructed from the data: ACP as integral to holistic care in HF; potentially limiting factors to the doctor-patient relationship; and approaches to improve professional performance. Many HCPs saw the benefits of ACP as synonymous with providing holistic care and improving patients' quality of life. However, some feared that initiating ACP could irrevocably damage their doctor-patient relationship. Their own fear of death and dying, a lack of disease-specific communication skills, and uncertainty about the right timing were significant barriers to ACP. To optimise their engagement with ACP in HF, HCPs recommended better clinician-patient dialogue through question prompts, enhanced shared decision-making approaches, synchronising ACP across medical specialties, and disease-specific training.
conclusionGPs and primary care nurses are vital to deliver ACP for patients suffering from HF. HCPs highlighted important areas to improve their practice and the urgent need for investigations into better clinician-patient engagement with ACP.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.