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Frederika E. Witkamp

Frederika E. Witkamp
Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences & Erasmus University Medical Centre Rotterdam · Research Centre Innovations in Care & Dept. of Public Health

PhD

About

74
Publications
9,762
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757
Citations
Introduction
Erica (Frederika E) Witkamp is professor at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Nursing and Research Centre Innovations in Care. Furthermore she works as a senior researcher at the Erasmus University Medial Centre Rotterdam. The overarching research theme is Family Caregiving; Care for and with the family of patients with severe or chronic diseases. Providing quantitative and qualitative research. Current topics are (among others): Palliative phase, Eldery, Dyads, students
Additional affiliations
October 2019 - January 2021
Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences
Position
  • Professor
Description
  • I am currently working on various projects on Family Caregiving. Family caregivers are both affected by the disease of a beloved person (and so they might be hidden patients) as well as experts and co-workers in care. However, in healthcare acknowledgement of their needs for support, and of their contribution to care often are recognized nor responded. In various settings and contexts I want to improve the position of and attention to family caregivers.
September 2014 - January 2018
Erasmus MC Cancer Institute
Position
  • PostDoc Position
Description
  • Self Management in Oral Anti Cancer therapy
January 2009 - January 2021
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Position
  • PhD Student
Description
  • Improving self-management and self-efficacy of patients and family living with advanced cancer. I participate in two studies; one international project on dyadic interventions (the DIAdIC-project) and one national project on a peer-led group intervention (the Chronic Disease Self-Management Programme) for patients and family caregivers (the SMART study).

Publications

Publications (74)
Article
Full-text available
Background The healthcare sector is facing increasing work pressure, making a healthy workforce essential. Appreciation is a factor influencing well-being, and the COVID-19 pandemic offers valuable insights into this. This study aims to: 1) describe to what extent end-of-life care providers felt appreciated and understood during the first 18 months...
Article
Objective A comprehensive understanding of coping strategies of patients with advanced diseases can contribute to providing supportive care that meets patients' needs. However, insight into how coping of this population develops over time is lacking. We examined coping strategies of patients with advanced cancer over time and identified distinct tr...
Article
Full-text available
Background During the COVID-19 pandemic, the way in which end-of-life care was provided, underwent a lot of changes and therefor different domains of end-of-life care were impacted. The aim of this study is to describe whether health care providers considered end-of-life care (in medical, nursing, psychosocial and spiritual care) limited by the pan...
Article
Full-text available
Aim To evaluate the failed implementation of the Carer Support Needs Assessment Tool Intervention for family caregivers in end‐of‐life care, within a trial context using Normalization Process Theory (NPT). Design An evaluation study was conducted to learn lessons from our trial, which was not successful due to the low number of participants. The e...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on care at the end-of-life due to restrictions and other circumstances such as high workload and uncertainty about the disease. The objective of this study is to describe the degree of various signs experienced by healthcare providers throughout the first 18 months of the pandemic and to a...
Article
Objective To identify predictors of sexual satisfaction in patients with advanced cancer and their family caregivers. Methods Cross‐sectional study using baseline survey data from a randomized controlled trial in six European countries. Patients with advanced cancer and their family caregiver completed measures on sexual satisfaction (one item fro...
Article
Full-text available
Objective To obtain insight into adaptation processes of redefining normality and its influencing factors in relatives of patients with advanced cancer. Methods An exploratory qualitative study among relatives of patients with advanced cancer was conducted. Participants were purposively recruited. Ten in‐depth individual (relative only) and 16 dya...
Article
Full-text available
Objective: Family caregivers are often intensively involved in palliative and end-of-life cancer care. A variety of interventions to support family caregivers have been developed, differing in target population, modality, and components. We aimed to systematically examine characteristics and the effectiveness of interventions to support family car...
Article
This study investigates how individuals construe, understand, and make sense of experiences during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Seventeen semi-structured interviews were conducted with bereaved spouses focusing on meaning attribution to the death of their partner. The interviewees were lacking adequate information, personalized care, an...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives: The objective of this study is to better understand how the COVID-19 outbreak impacted the different domains of the palliative care approach to end-of-life care from the perspective of healthcare professionals (HCPs) from different professions, working in different settings during the first months of the COVID-19 outbreak in the Nether...
Article
Full-text available
Background Palliative care services seek to improve the wellbeing of family carers of people living with serious and life-limiting illness. To help achieve this goal, systematic reviews have recommended priority areas for family carer research and the need to improve the quality of study design. Policy makers have also advocated for enhanced family...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose Having advanced cancer presents many challenges for patients and family caregivers. The FOCUS program is a psychoeducational nurse-led intervention, developed in the USA, to support dyads of patients with cancer and their family caregivers to live with the illness. The program includes a conversation manual and information resources for dya...
Article
This study aimed at investigating nurse practitioners' self-efficacy and behavior in supporting self-management of patients with a progressive, life-threatening illness and their relatives. We adapted an existing validated instrument for this purpose, amongst other things by adding a seventh subscale "attention for relatives," and administered it i...
Article
Full-text available
Objective: Relatives of patients with advanced cancer often have many caring responsibilities. Not everyone may have sufficient knowledge, skills, and confidence-also known as caregiver activation-to provide such care. We assessed caregiver activation in relatives and its association with their personal characteristics and their own well-being. M...
Article
Full-text available
Background Persons with advanced cancer and their relatives experience physical, emotional, and psychosocial consequences of the illness. Most of the time, they must deal with these themselves. While peer self-management support programs may be helpful, there is little evidence on their value for this population. We present the research protocol of...
Article
Full-text available
Objective: To obtain insight in self-management challenges of persons with advanced cancer and factors that influence their self-management. Methods: Exploratory study among persons with advanced cancer. We conducted in-depth interviews and performed an inductive thematic analysis, using open, axial and selective coding. Results: We interviewe...
Article
Full-text available
Although fatigue is a common symptom in adult patients with primary immunodeficiencies (PID), data in pediatric patients are limited. The goal of this study is to estimate the prevalence and impact of fatigue in children with PID as reported by patients, parents, and health-care providers. A retrospective single-center observational study was perfo...
Article
Full-text available
Background The COVID-19 pandemic and restricting measures have affected end-of-life care across different settings. Aim To compare experiences of bereaved relatives with end-of-life care for a family member or friend who died at home, in a hospital, nursing home or hospice during the pandemic. Design An open observational online survey was develo...
Article
Full-text available
Background Family caregivers are crucial in providing end-of-life care at home. Without their care, it would be difficult for many patients to die at home. In addition to providing care, family caregivers also need support for themselves. Nurses could play an important role in supporting family caregivers, but little is known about if and how they...
Article
Full-text available
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic affects care practices for critically ill patients, with or without a COVID-19 infection, and may have affected the experience of dying for patients and their relatives in the physical, psychological, social and spiritual domains. Aim: To give insight into aspects of end-of-life care practices that might have je...
Article
Objectives Self-management of patients with advanced cancer is challenging. Although healthcare professionals may play a crucial role in supporting these patients, scant scientific attention has been paid to their perspectives. Therefore, we examined healthcare professionals’ views on self-management and self-management support in this population....
Preprint
Full-text available
Although fatigue is a common symptom in adult patients with Primary Immunodeficiencies (PID), data in pediatric patients are limited. The goal of this study is to estimate the prevalence and impact of fatigue in children with PID as reported by patients, parents and health-care providers. A retrospective single center observational study was perfor...
Article
Full-text available
Background During the COVID-19 outbreak restricting measures may have affected the provision of good end-of-life care for patients with and without COVID-19. Aim To describe characteristics of patients who died and the care they received, and to examine how patient characteristics, setting and visiting restrictions are related to provided care and...
Article
Full-text available
Background Family caregivers enable patients to be cared for and die at home whereas nurses aim to support the family caregivers of these patients. Information on how this support is provided and how this is documented in nursing files is largely lacking. Aim To gain insight in nurses' reports on the supportive care for family caregivers. Methods...
Article
Full-text available
Confrontatie met patiënten in de palliatieve fase is in de oncologie onvermijdelijk, maar wat betekent dit voor studenten verpleegkunde en beginnende verpleegkundigen? En hoe kan worden voorkomen dat ze door emotionele uitputting voortijdig stoppen met de opleiding of op zoek gaan naar een andere baan? In dit artikel worden de uitkomsten beschreven...
Article
Full-text available
Aim: To evaluate the feasibility of a structured nurse-led supportive intervention and its effects on family caregivers in end-of-life care at home. Background: Family caregivers are crucial in end-of-life care. They may experience burden due to the responsibilities associated with caregiving. Some family caregivers feel insufficiently prepared...
Article
Full-text available
Background Patients with advanced cancer are increasingly expected to self-manage. Thus far, this topic has received little systematic attention. Aim To summarise studies describing self-management strategies of patients with advanced cancer and associated experiences and personal characteristics. Also, to summarise attitudes of relatives and heal...
Article
Diverse studies richten zich op het in kaart brengen van de hoge belasting van zorgverleners in palliatieve zorg en op de vraag hoe ze ondersteund kunnen worden in de omgang hiermee. We gaan in op drie van deze studies en pleiten voor meer samenwerking rondom 'zorg voor de zorgenden'.
Article
Background: Family caregivers are crucial in end-of-life care. However, family caregiving may involve a significant burden with various negative health consequences. Although nurses are in a unique position to support family caregivers at home, little is known about which nursing interventions are effective in this context. Therefore, this study a...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose Involvement of palliative care experts improves the quality of life and satisfaction with care of patients who are in the last stage of life. However, little is known about the relation between palliative care expert involvement and quality of dying (QOD) in the hospital. We studied the association between palliative care team (PCT) consult...
Data
Questionnaire Relatives _MaleVersionEnglish.doc. (DOC)
Article
Objectives: To determine the effectiveness of advance care planning (ACP) in frail older adults. Design: Cluster randomized controlled trial. Setting: Residential care homes in the Netherlands (N=16). Participants: Care home residents and community-dwelling adults receiving home care (N=201; n=101 intervention; n=100 control). Participants w...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives: Burdensome and futile interventions with the aim of prolonging life should be avoided in dying patients. However, current clinical practice has hardly been investigated.We examined the number and type of diagnostic and therapeutic medical interventions in hospitalised patients with cancer in their last days of life. In addition, we inv...
Article
Full-text available
Background: For patients with a hematological malignancy, allogeneic stem cell transplantation (alloSCT) is a treatment modality that may cause a wide range of problems. Little is known about the process of recovery and rehabilitation and the problems that alloSCT patients are confronted with during the first-year posttransplant. Objective: This...
Article
Full-text available
Background In the outpatient oncology clinic, pain management is often inadequate. Incorporating a systematic pain management program into visits is likely to improve this. We implemented an integrated program, including a structured pain assessment, pain treatment protocol and patient education module. In the present study, we investigated whether...
Article
Full-text available
Context: Hospital care and communication tend to be focused on the individual patient and decision making is typically based on the principle of individual autonomy. It can be questioned whether this approach is adequate when a patient is terminally ill. Objectives: Our aim was to explore the involvement and experiences of relatives in the hospi...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Background: Evidence-based practice (EBP) is integrated in the education of students of allied health and (occupational therapy, speech-language therapy) nursing professionals. Recently, the challenge for higher education is to meet increasing demands towards (practice-based) research. To educate health care professionals who are expected to provi...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
See also http://www.ebhcconference.org/previous_editions/2015/presentations/PD.01_Neijenhuis_K.pdf Background Education in evidence-based practice (EBP) was introduced in our curriculum of Speech-Language Therapy (SLT) 15 years ago. So, we should assume that many SLTs already know how to practice evidence-based, according to the methods they learn...
Article
Background It is unclear to what extent frail older people are interested in participation in Advance Care Planning (ACP). Aim Within the context of a research project to assess whether ACP improves Patient Activation and Quality of Life of frail older people, we assessed how many frail older people are interested in participation and how many comp...
Article
Full-text available
Background Currently, health care and medical decision-making at the end of life for older people are often insufficiently patient-centred. In this trial we study the effects of Advance Care Planning (ACP), a formalised process of timely communication about care preferences at the end of life, for frail older people. Methods/Design We will conduct...
Article
Full-text available
Background To improve the quality of end-of-life care, hospitals increasingly appoint palliative care nurse champions. Aim We investigated the effect of nurse champions on the quality of life during the last 3 days of life and the quality of dying as experienced by bereaved relatives. Design A controlled before-and-after study (June 2009–July 201...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Objective: Education in evidence-based practice (EBP) has become more integrated in the SLT curriculum, as there is a movement from offering separate EBP courses towards integrating an EBP-attitude across all courses in a curriculum. We measured EBP performance and attitudes to benchmark the current level of our students. Lecturers and practitioner...
Article
Full-text available
When patients die relatives and healthcare professionals may appreciate the quality of the dying phase differently, but comparisons are rare. In a cross-sectional study (June 2009–July 2012) the experiences of bereaved relatives, physicians, and nurses concerning the quality of dying in a large Dutch university hospital were compared, and the rela...
Article
Context: Most deaths in Western countries occur in hospital, but little is known about factors determining the quality of dying (QOD). Objectives: The aim was to assess the QOD in hospital as experienced by relatives and identify factors related to QOD. Methods: A cross-sectional study on 18 wards of a university hospital in The Netherlands wa...
Article
Full-text available
Background: In hospitals, where care is focused on cure and life prolongation, impending death is often recognized too late. Physician awareness of impending death is a prerequisite for communication with patients and relatives about dying in hospital and providing care that adequately addresses patients' needs. Objective: To examine to what ext...
Article
The purpose of this study was the psychometric testing of a questionnaire to assess nurses' opinions, subjective norms, perceived difficulties, and knowledge related to palliative care. The 63-item MOVE2PC Questionnaire was tested among 219 nurses in groups differing in education and experience. The intra-rater agreement was moderate to good (к > ....
Article
Full-text available
Background The quality of care of patients dying in the hospital is often judged as insufficient. This article describes the protocol of a study to assess the quality of care of the dying patient and the contribution of an intervention targeted on staff nurses of inpatient wards of a large university hospital in the Netherlands. Methods/Design We...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Purpose: In the Netherlands one third of all deaths (n=35,000 per year) occurs in a hospital. Complex medical decisions are often needed for patients admitted to the acute hospital for whom cure or recovery can not be obtained anymore. In this study we investigated preferences on end of life care of patients who died in the hospital. Method: All...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Purpose: In the Netherlands one third of all deaths (n=35,000 per year) occurs in a hospital. There is growing interest in palliative care and adequate end-of-life decision making in hospitals. In clinical practice palliative care is mainly focused on the cancer patient, although dying trajectories of non-cancer patients are known to be less predic...
Article
Full-text available
Changes in individual quality of life (IQoL) and its correlates in patients admitted to an academic palliative care unit are reported. Correlates tested were pain, fatigue, and reconceptualization (changes in content of quality of life, a measure of adaptation). IQoL was measured with a structured interview method that derives an IQoL score from ev...
Article
Hoewel adequate pijnbestrijding voor de meeste kankerpatiënten met pijn mogelijk is, blijkt uit onderzoek dat de kwaliteit van de pijnbestrijding verre van ideaal is (1-16). In de afgelopen jaren is veel aandacht besteed aan het verbeteren van de pijnbestrijding, maar tot nu toe is nog weinig aandacht besteed aan de rol die patiënten zelf hebben bi...

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