ArticleBMC palliative care2025
Emergency palliative cancer care: anxiety and midazolam.
Article in BMC palliative care, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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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.
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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
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Factors associated with end-of-life quality in terminally ill cancer patients' last six months of life: a longitudinal study.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2025Article
- Use of brief, simple anxiety assessment tools in palliative care - yes, we can: a cross-sectional observational study of anxiety visual analog scale and numeric rating scale.BMC palliative care · 2025Observational
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
objectiveCancer patients treated with palliative intent often report anxiety. Anxiety is associated with dyspnoea, cancer pain, and reduced quality of life. Limited knowledge on variability and treatment effects warranted exploring factors associated with improvement in anxiety for hospitalised palliative cancer patients.
methodsThis study is a cross-sectional secondary analysis. All patients admitted to an acute palliative care unit for one year were assessed and 164 patients satisfied the study inclusion criteria. The patients reported self-registered symptom intensities using the 11-point numeric rating scale. Demographic variables, patient reports, and medical management were analysed for associations with anxiety.
resultsAt admission, 37.8% of the patients reported moderate or severe anxiety, and of these 43.6% used benzodiazepines. The corresponding numbers for benzodiazepine use were 35.1% and 24.4% for patients with mild and no anxiety, respectively. Of all patients, 26.8% reported improved anxiety during their hospital stay. More patients with moderate or severe anxiety at admission reported improved anxiety during hospitalisation (50.0%) compared to the corresponding patients with mild anxiety (22.8%). Patients with moderate or severe anxiety reported less improvement in pain compared to patients with mild anxiety. Improved dyspnoea was the only factor statistically associated with improvement in anxiety, both for patients reporting mild anxiety and moderate and severe anxiety. Thirty-seven-point-1% of patients with moderate or severe anxiety at admission received no benzodiazepine treatment during the hospital stay. Patients receiving midazolam had more anxiety at admission, were younger, and had poorer performance status. Median dose and interquartile range [IQR] of midazolam in these patients were 2 mg/24 h [IQR: 2.0-6.0].
conclusionImproved dyspnoea was associated with reduced anxiety; however, the use of benzodiazepines was not.
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