The \u00c9quipe Mobile de Soins Palliatifs (EMSP) team at Estey, part of the Pavillon de la Mutualit\u00e9 in Bordeaux and a partner in the European HENKO NET project, has completed the mini-pilot of the IDC-PAL tool, an instrument designed to identify the complexity of palliative situations in patients with advanced or terminal illnesses.<\/p>\n
Between November 2025 and January 2026, seven professionals\u2014three doctors, three nurses and a psychologist\u2014evaluated the tool with 35 patients aged between 48 and 96.<\/p>\n
A focus group was held with the professionals involved, and their main contributions emphasise that the main usefulness of the tool is clear: \u2018It allows the detection of patients who could benefit from a specialised team\u2019 and would also improve \u2018initial guidance towards palliative care resources\u2019.<\/p>\n
In turn, the study reveals that the actual target audience for the tool is not experts and professionals specialising in palliative care. They believe that the IDC-PAL could be more aimed at general practitioners or teams who need initial support to identify complexities. \u2018It is more for those who have no experience in palliative care.\u2019<\/p>\n
The mini-pilot methodology included home visits in pairs, joint completion of the questionnaire, multidisciplinary discussions and qualitative analysis using a focus group, as well as evaluation using the UTAUT2 questionnaire, which confirmed its acceptability and ease of use.<\/p>\n
Even so, the discussion group expressed one major concern: the length of the questionnaire\u2014three pages\u2014could discourage already overworked general practitioners. \u2018There is a risk that there will be no notifications simply because it is three pages long,\u2019 warned the team’s psychologist.<\/p>\n
The study also generated several suggestions for improvement, such as including the option \u201cNot applicable\u201d in all items, adapting the content to the French context\u2014especially the socio-family dimension\u2014and integrating essential aspects of palliative care that are not currently reflected, such as refusal of care, proportionality of treatments, and palliative sedation.<\/p>\n
The professionals also recommended comparing IDC-PAL with the French tool PALLIA10, which is considered more flexible and capable of covering situations that IDC-PAL fragments or does not contemplate, including conflict management within the team or requests for early death.<\/p>\n
Finally, the team highlighted the potential of IDC-PAL as a research tool for measuring the impact of palliative care interventions. \u2018It would be interesting to see if complexity levels decrease over time,\u2019 explained the psychologist.<\/p>\n
The study is a first step towards the adaptation and validation of IDC-PAL in France, contributing to HENKO NET’s objective of improving the management of palliative situations through shared solutions between France, Spain and Portugal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The \u00c9quipe Mobile de Soins Palliatifs (EMSP) team at Estey, part of the Pavillon de la Mutualit\u00e9 in Bordeaux and a partner in the European HENKO NET project, has completed the mini-pilot of the IDC-PAL tool, an instrument designed to identify the complexity of palliative situations in patients with advanced or terminal illnesses. Between November […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4922,"featured_media":60330,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"class_list":["post-60349","noticia-proyecto","type-noticia-proyecto","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n