1999 Volume 3 Issue 1 Pages 78-86
The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent the nursing staff and the medical staff agreed on the evaluation of the daily life of terminally ill patients who were cared for by nurses and physicians at home. Data was collected by survey methodology. The semistructured questionnaires with the T. Noguchi and I. Shono QOL state tool were sent to the nursing and medical staff who had jointly provided care for those patients. A Total of 12 cases were analyzed.
The findings are as follows: cases about which nurses and physicians agreed to a high degree also marked high on the QOL evaluation. Of the 13 items of the tool, seven maintained QOL till terminal stage; they were sleep, pain, diet, cleanliness, elimination, emotional stability, and right to choose.
What has turned out to be important is this. The nursing and medical staff who collaborated in caring for terminally ill homebound patients should first evaluate the quality of the care they provided separately and then minimize whatever differences between the two staffs in order to maximize the patient’s overall quality of terminal life.
