This resulting toolkit is a practical guide  intended to assist users to become advocates  for palliative care in a practical and effective 
way. It is not necessarily a resource to read  from cover to cover; rather, it can also be used  selectively to each reader’s needs to engage  audiences and... ensure that there is a real  understanding of the need for palliative care.  It should also be read in conjunction with the  supplementary resources listed at the end of  each of the toolkit’s sections.
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                                                                The Guidelines for the Use of the APCA African  Palliative Outcome Scale (POS) has been  developed by the APCA, in collaboration with 
stakeholders, to help appropriately trained  health practitioners and researchers across  the region to utilise the APCA African POS in  their work place (Powell et... al, 2007; Warria  et al, 2007). Not only do the guidelines  provide a clear rationale for measuring  palliative care outcomes, but they also outline  practical information on how to use the tool  to collect data and analyse its results.  So why is there a need for these guidelines? 
Palliative care as a concept and discipline  is not well understood across Africa, and  its development is still embryonic in many  countries. While there are many obstacles  that hinder palliative care development on  the continent, a key challenge is the lack of  accurate information about the palliative  care being provided and its outcomes. The  APCA African POS is a useful tool to help us  measure these outcomes and, given that 
measuring palliative care outcomes remains  a relatively new concept, it is important  to guide people on how to use the tool. Of course, these guidelines are not intended  to address everything related to the  measurement of palliative care outcomes;  they contain only essential information for  providers. More detailed information on the  use of outcome tools, and in particular within  the research setting, can be gained from  contacting relevantly trained professionals.
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                                                                In the absence of a such a measure, and building on the success of developing the APCA African 
Palliative Outcome Scale (POS) for adults, the African Palliative Care Association has developed the 
APCA African Children’s POS. The tool has been validated across diseases, countries, settings and ...
languages and used in both quality improvement and research studies. Moreover, feedback on the 
tool from doctors and nurses who have used it has been very supportive, with providers perceiving 
it as an easy-to-use instrument that helps them undertake holistic assessments that in part entail 
discussing difficult issues.
This booklet is a practical guide intended to help users employ the APCA African POS correctly. 
Following a discussion of the origins and background to the APCA African PPOS, the guide discusses 
the measurement of outcomes, the development of the tool and its use (including the analysis of 
collected data), before finishing with illustrative examples of the use of the questionnaire.
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