Palliative care assessment of dry mouth: what matters most to patients with advanced disease?

Purpose: Dry mouth is a highly prevalent and significant symptom in patients with advanced progressive diseases. It is a poorly understood area of research, and currently, there is no standardised outcome measure or assessment tool for dry mouth.

Methods: To assess responses to self-reported dry mouth questions, the impact of dry mouth, methods used to reduce symptoms and relevance of the questionnaire. A cross-sectional multisite study of 135 patients with advanced progressive disease experiencing dry mouth. Participants were located in the inpatient, day care, outpatient or community setting.

Results: The majority (84.4%) of patients rated their dry mouth as moderate or severe using the verbal rating scale (VRS). Seventy-five percent (74.7%) had a numeric rating scale (NRS) score of 6 or more for dry mouth severity. Patients reported that dry mouth interfered most with talking and was the most important function to assess (median score 6 out of 10) followed by eating (median 5) and taste (median 5). Taking sips of drink was the most common and most effective self-management strategy. Over half of patients (54.6%) also reported impact on swallow and sleep and associated dryness of lips, throat and nasal passages.

Conclusions: This study highlights the severity of dry mouth in advanced disease. Important factors when assessing patients with dry mouth should include the functional impact on day-to-day activities including talking, dysphagia and sleep. Simple considerations for patients include provision of drinks and reviewing medications. This study could be used to develop a standardised assessment tool for dry mouth to use in clinical practice.