This scholarly volume explores communication at the end of life, emphasizing palliative care and the circumstances of patients in need of such consideration.

Communication in Palliative Nursing presents the COMFORT Model, a theoretically-grounded and empirically-based model of palliative care communication. Built on over a decade of communication research with patients, families, and interdisciplinary providers, and reworked based on feedback from hundreds of nurses nationwide, the chapters outline a revised COMFORT curriculum: Connect, Options, Making Meaning, Family caregivers, Openings, Relating, and Team communication. Based on a narrative approach to communication, which addresses communication skill development, this volume teaches nurses to consider a universal model of communication that aligns with the holistic nature of palliative care. This work moves beyond the traditional and singular view of the nurse as patient and family educator, to embrace highly complex communication challenges present in palliative care-namely, providing care and comfort through communication at a time when patients, families, and nurses themselves are suffering. In light of the vast changes in the palliative care landscape and the increasingly pivotal role of nurses in advancing those changes, this second edition provides an evidence-based approach to the practice of palliative nursing. Communication in Palliative Nursing integrates communication theory and health literacy constructs throughout, and provides clinical tools and teaching resources to help nurses enhance their own communication and create comfort for themselves, as well as for patients and their families.

This exceptional work explores the complexities of communication at one of the most critical stages of the life experience--during advanced, serious illness and at the end of life. Challenging the predominantly biomedical model that informs much communication between seriously ill and/or dying patients and their physicians, caregivers, and families, Sandra L. Ragan, Elaine M. Wittenberg-Lyles, Joy Goldsmith, and Sandra Sanchez-Reilly pose palliative care--medical care designed to comfort rather than to cure patients--as an antidote to the experience of most Americans at the most vulnerable juncture of their lives. With an author team comprised of three health communication scholars and one physician certified in geriatrics and palliative medicine, this volume integrates the medical literature on palliative care with that of health communication researchers who advocate a biopsychosocial approach to health care. Applying communication theories and insights to illuminate problems and to explain their complexities, the authors advocate a patient-centered approach to care that recognizes and seeks to lessen patients’ suffering and the many types of pain they may experience (physical, psychological, social, and spiritual) during life-threatening illness.

"The first edition of Communication in Palliative Nursing was published in 2012 and became the market leader for nurses wanting to learn more about how to improve and teach palliative care communication. For the last 8 years, it has remained the only text solely focused on the vital role of nurses in palliative care. During this time, the COMFORT model was taught to nurses nationwide who brought the curriculum back to their own institutions and taught components of the model to more than 10,000 healthcare providers across the United States (Wittenberg, Ferrell, Goldsmith, Ragan, & Buller, 2017). Numerous journal articles and research studies have been produced to highlight the principle components of the COMFORT model and test its effectiveness among healthcare audiences across a variety of clinical and educational settings. Through this all, as the model was disseminated to clinical audiences of bedside nurses, nurse leaders, nursing students, and interprofessional learners, feedback was captured about COMFORT. Comments revealed major components of the model that were working and weren't working for the nurses and other healthcare providers who utilized the strategies with patients and families, and began using curriculum tools for teaching and integrating palliative care communication instruction. So, much like the model's grounding in a transactional communication approach, which relies on the co-created interaction between parties, it was clear that the COMFORT model was also ebbing and flowing and had to change. More importantly, palliative care has been growing, changing, expanding, and becoming more sophisticated, more wide-spread! Now more than ever before, palliative care is provided in the home, clinic, or inpatient setting and serves patients who are seriously or chronically ill and their families. It became evident that in order to continue improvements to the model and to keep up with the changing landscape of palliative care and palliative patient populations, a new edition was necessary. Before we highlight the changes, it is never too early to overstate our steadfast commitment to the following principles: We believe that communication research and theory can shape palliative care practices, providing tools for a variety of contexts. We believe that palliative care, offering compassionate, holistic treatment for patients and their families, will not be possible without caring for the entire person (body and mind). We believe that communicating about palliative care must begin at diagnosis of serious illness, not just at end-stages. We believe in a patient-centered approach to communication that emphasizes the role of the family caregiver in the illness trajectory. We believe that intentional communication emphasizing team processes among physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, and other healthcare professionals improves palliative care practice. We believe that palliative care should be introduced early in the communication education of all health professionals. We believe that education about palliative care and communication must extend to patients and families who can then advocate for and partner more productively in such services. We believe that communication with the family caregiver is essential for the treatment of pain and symptom management. We believe that frequent conversations are needed across the disease/care trajectory, as patients and families encounter ongoing points of decision-making"--

This scholarly volume explores communication at the end of life, emphasizing palliative care and the circumstances of patients in need of such consideration.

'The Textbook of Palliative Care Communication' is the authoritative text on communication in palliative care. Uniquely developed by an interdisciplinary editorial team to address an array of providers including physicians, nurses, social workers, and chaplains, it unites clinicians and academic researchers interested in the study of communication.

This handbook provides a comprehensive review of communication around rising global environmental challenges and public action to manage them now and into the future. Bringing together theoretical, methodological, and practical chapters, this book presents a unique opportunity for environmental communication scholars to critically reflect on the past, examine present trends, and start envisioning exciting new methodologies, theories, and areas of research. Chapters feature authors from a wide range of countries to critically review the genesis and evolution of environmental communication research and thus analyze current issues in the field from a truly international perspective, incorporating diverse epistemological perspectives, exciting new methodologies, and interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks. The handbook seeks to challenge existing dominant perspectives of environmental communication from and about populations in the Global South and disenfranchised populations in the Global North. The Handbook of International Trends in Environmental Communication is ideal for scholars and advanced students of communication, sustainability, strategic communication, media, environmental studies, and politics.