Applicability of an Educational Program for Family Caregivers of Home Care Patients with Advanced Cancer

Abstract

Although many previous studies clarified that family caregivers of home care patients with advanced cancer have high unmet needs, few studies have developed and evaluated educational programs for the family caregivers. This article examined an applicability of an educational program for family caregivers of advanced cancer patients who receive home care services. First, the program based on the findings of previous studies and the discussions of research project members and clinical nurses, was developed to address family caregivers' needs for acquisition of necessary knowledge and skills, including a dying process to death and how to care for patients' physical and psychologic problems at home. Second, the validity and the feasibility of the program were investigated for 29 consented home care nurses. In them, 21 nurses (response rate 72%) scored 8.10±1.37 and 6.43±2.52 (range 0-10) for the validity and the feasibility of this program, respectively. The result suggests that this program is applicable for family caregivers of home care patients with advanced cancer. Additional research is inevitable to test the efficacy of the program developed in this study.