A Patient Perspective of Subcutaneous Furosemide in Palliative Care
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A Patient Perspective of Subcutaneous Furosemide in Palliative Care
IRAS ID
311496
Contact name
Clea Atkinson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cardiff and Vale Univeristy Health Board
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 1 days
Research summary
Advanced heart failure (AHF) is a prevalent condition associated with poor quality-of-life and high symptom burden. Patients with AHF can experience a fluctuating clinical course and symptoms such as breathlessness and fluid overload. As patients advance towards end-of-life, these symptoms often require increasingly frequent hospital admissions for treatment with medications such as intravenous furosemide.
Many AHF patients’ preferred place of care and death (PPC/D) is home. A potential solution to preventing unwanted hospital admissions and helping patients achieve their PPC/D, is the use of subcutaneous furosemide (SCF), an alternative to intravenous therapy, which can also be used at home. Scientific studies have shown SCF to be comparably safe and effective in managing decompensations of AHF, when compared to intravenous hospital treatment. However, there is little evidence exploring patients’ views and experiences of using SCF, limiting its use in clinical practice.
This research project therefore seeks to further establish patients’ perspective on the use of SCF; with a view to enriching the literature and evidence base regarding its place in the clinical management of AHF.
To explore patients’ views further, the Cardiff Heart Failure Supportive Care Service will be recruiting adult AHF patients with experience of SCF use who are under the care of the service, to take part in a short semi-structured telephone interview.
Suitable patients will be identified by the clinical team. Patients will be fully informed about the study in verbal and written format. Patients who consent to take part will then undertake a telephone interview at a date convenient to them. All data collected from the interview will be anonymised and recorded on a secure encrypted NHS device for analysis by the research team.
We hope that information generated from this research may be published in academic journals to help inform future use of home SCF.
REC name
London - Surrey Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/PR/0137
Date of REC Opinion
13 Apr 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion