title: [Balancing benefit and harm in palliative care: the difficult position of palliative medicine in view of the promises of curative medicine].
abstract: The significance of palliative care as an interdisciplinary and multi-professional approach to treating patients with extremely severe medical conditions should be investigated using the same methodological standards as for clinical medicine in general. Clinical studies in palliative medicine show that certain standards, e.g. in pain therapy, have still not been sufficiently implemented. There is also a lack of methodologically appropriate studies to investigate palliative medicine as a complex intervention. This research deficit is all the more regrettable as - specifically in the field of oncology - it can be demonstrated that the benefit provided by the services of palliative care teams is very large, especially for patients with a particularly unfavorable course of the disease.
authors.affiliation: Universität Bremen, Fachbereich Human- und Gesundheitswissenschaften. Arbeits- und Koordinierungsstelle Gesundheitsversorgungsforschung. Schmacke@uni-bremen.de
authors.forename: Norbert
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Schmacke
mesh_terms: D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D010146:Pain / Q000401:mortality; D059408:Pain Management; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011379:Prognosis; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012015:Reference Standards; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*