Difficult Feelings of Visiting Nurses Regarding Grief Care for Families Providing End-of-Life Care for Cancer Patients at Home

Abstract

Grief care starts, before an end-of-life cancer patient passes away. The purpose of this study was to clarify the difficult feelings of visiting nurses regarding grief care for families providing end-of-life care for cancer patients at home.

The study design included qualitative induction research. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews and analyzed from the viewpoint of the difficult feelings of visiting nurses regarding grief care for families providing end-of-life care for cancer patients at home. This study received approval from the ethics committee of the Institutional Review Board of a university.

The subjects included 13 visiting nurses with 10.8±5.6 years of experience as visiting nurses for end-oflife cancer patients at home. All participants were female, ranging in age from 44.5±4.7 years. As to the difficult feelings of the visiting nurses regarding grief care for families providing end-of-life care for cancer patients at home, nine categories were identified including: [Support for understanding of medical condition], [Support for the acceptance of death], [Support for decision-making and coordination among family members], [Cannot listen to the feelings of family], [How to listen to the feelings of family], [Lack of understanding of need for bereaved family care], [Evaluation of grief care], [Insufficient system to support bereaved family] and [The pain of the nurse herself].

Regarding grief care for families providing end-of-life care for cancer patients at home, problems such as being unable to listen to the feelings of family, lack of knowledge and understanding of grief care and the nurse’s own grief were all shown to have particular effects.