Difficulties for Homecare Nurses in Providing Nutritional Support to Terminally Ill Clients with Cancer at Home

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to clarify the difficulties that homecare nurses face in practicing nutritional support for terminally ill clients with cancer at home. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 homecare nurses working in area A in Osaka Prefecture, and analysis was conducted using Krippendorff content analysis. As a result, the homecare nurses found that, as difficulties in providing nutritional support to terminally ill cancer clients receiving treatment at home, the terminally ill clients already had “difficulties in providing dietary support according to their ever-changing medical conditions” and “deal with the conflicts of the clients who cannot tell their families that they cannot eat”. While providing dietary support, nurses also must take into consideration “the support of family members who feel frustrated by the client’s inability to eat” and must “deal with the anguish that arises between the client and family”. It was revealed that homecare nurses feel that they want to provide better nursing care by sharing information and care with multi-professionals, mainly dietitians as nutritional support for terminal ill cancer clients at home, while they recognize the difficulty of complicated community services “coordinating between professionals as an advocate”.