CareSearch News

Our Dying2Learn 2020 graduation booklet has been mailed to participants who expressed interest. The booklet outlines the topics, activities, and participant answers and feedback.

We have free copies remaining, email us at caresearch@flinders.edu.au to order.

The research paper Words describing feelings about death: A comparison of sentiment for self and others and changes over time has been published in PLOS ONE. The publication evaluated the language used by previous participants to describe their feelings about death and dying and found that altering the way we think about death, and teaching people to discuss it in a more positive way, could improve end-of-life health care.

To better serve your information needs, we at the CareSearch Project want to know how we can better tailor our future communication materials. Have your say by answering this 5-minute survey.

CareSearch has launched a national campaign designed to increase community awareness of palliative care as well as highlighting a host of free resources and information anyone can access.

The Part of Life campaign encourages all Australians to learn, care, and plan for death and dying.

The campaign launch follows significant work by CareSearch and its partners to assist health professionals and community members with access to quality information.

'Death and dying will affect all of us. It’s a part of life. And that means everyone has a role to play in palliative care,' CareSearch Director Professor Jennifer Tieman said.

'CareSearch provides evidence, information, and practical palliative care resources for everyone involved in providing care or supporting people at the end of life.'

Under the National Palliative Care Strategy, six guiding principles have been identified as fundamental to ensure that all people experience the palliative care they need.

The CareSearch Part of Life campaign therefore highlights six important elements of palliative care, including that palliative care is person-centred care; that care is accessible; and that everyone has a role.

'What we are hoping to achieve through this campaign is two-fold; we want to further support health professionals through easy access to quality information and we also want to lift community literacy as a way to encourage advance planning,' Professor Tieman said.

To explore the Part of Life campaign, please visit www.caresearch.com.au/partoflife.

Read our blog and media release.

Dying2Learn is an online course that aims to enable Australians to be more comfortable talking about death and dying, understand what shapes our views and attitudes, and be confident when addressing issues that will affect us all at the end-of-life. In 2020 Dying2Learn will cover the topics:

• How we engage with death and dying (week 1)
• Representations of death and dying (week 2)
• What will we die of? How will we die? (week 3)
• Dying in a digital age (week 4)
• Final reflections (week 5)

This year, Dying2Learn will run from 05 October to 02 November. The course is free and open to everyone in Australia. Enrolment ends 09 October, 2020.

CareSearch developed and manages palliAGED to provide support in palliative care for the aged care sector. In July a new and final topic was released, Psychosocial Care. This sits at the core of palliative care and connects to many of the 37 topics already available on the palliAGED website. In practice, awareness of and attendance to psychosocial support should be a part of all aspects of palliative care. You can also read the blog by CareSearch staff members Susan Gravier and Robyn Dutschke on this release.

For more than ten years, the Palliative Approach (PA) Toolkit has supported residential aged care facilities to implement a comprehensive, evidence-based, person-centred, and sustainable approach to palliative care. For the last five years access to this resource has been supported through the CareSearch website. Since its release in 2009, there have been many changes to the evidence base and palliAGED and End of Life Directions for Aged Care (ELDAC) now support the aged care sector. The PA Toolkit was retired on 30 June 2020 after the completion of a content transition plan. You can find more information and alternative resources here.

CareSearch Project has secured $3.8 M of further funding from the Department of Health to expand access to evidence-based palliative resources, research, and education.

Established in 2008, CareSearch is the only project in the country that continuously identifies, evaluates, synthesises, and disseminates trustworthy information and best available evidence on palliative care.

'Given the expected increased demand for palliative care, the need for evidence-based and practical resources and information is more pronounced than ever,' states Professor Jennifer Tieman, Director of CareSearch. 'We are encouraged by the continuous support from the Department to drive evidence-based care, and are fortunate to have a team and partners who are committed to evidence-based approaches.'

In this current round of funding, CareSearch will focus on: 

1. Providing current and readily accessible evidence to guide palliative care practice in Australia
2. Revitalising evidence use in palliative care through a new approach to digital translation
3. Encouraging community understanding of palliative care and death as part of life
4. Recognising and working with different care providers and across the diversity of our population

The CareSearch Project is managed by the Flinders Research Centre for Palliative Care, Death, and Dying and is based at the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. The project maintains the CareSearch and palliAGED websites, receiving more than a million web visitors per year. CareSearch also runs Dying2Learn, a free massive online open course that empowers the wider community to talk about death, dying, and palliative care. 

This summary outlines the other key accomplishments and plans for the next three years (1MB pdf).

We are pleased to announce that we will be running the Dying2Learn MOOC again this year. You can register your interest for updates on the dates and other information. 

Caring@home, a CareSearch partner project, provides resources to help at home carers manage breakthrough symptoms safely using subcutaneous medicines.To assist clinical service providers during the COVID-19 pandemic, caring@home have produced augmented caring@home packages for carers. These include an Emergency COVID-19 pack to support home-based care and help limit risks of community COVID-19 transmission. These packages are funded by the Australian Government. Service providers can order the augmented caring@home packages online.