The purpose of this study was to clarify the fundamental elements of collaboration between nurses and care workers involved in home care support, and to contribute to the development of a quality index for collaboration. Fundamental elements of collaboration were selected from a qualitative inductive analysis of the state of practice of collaboration described in an interview survey with four visiting nurses and a focus group of eight visiting care workers. From the results of the survey, 213 contextual items were obtained from the visiting nurses and 41 from the visiting care workers, and a total of 46 fundamental elements for collaboration were selected. The elements were then divided into nine categories: organizational system, occupational roles, communication system, risk management, and information management as fundamental elements of “nurse and care worker collaboration,” and advance arrangements, operational collaboration, follow-up confirmation, and relational form as fundamental elements of “collaboration practices.” The 46 collaboration elements were structured according to three categories (structure, process, and outcome evaluations) of a medical quality index. High quality collaboration has reliable implementation mechanisms for the communication system, risk management, and information management under a system including work assignation and personnel assignment according to the organizational system and occupational roles within a workplace and between workplaces. It is conjectured that activities can be carried out that both satisfy home care recipients’ needs and support safe home care by reliably and continuously executing advance arrangements, operational cooperation, and follow-up confirmation, based on a relational form in which there are attitudes of mutual respect between occupations and working for the same care recipient.

　This study clarifies the educational practices of nurses involved in end-of-life care for elderly patients at long-term care facilities. In this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 nurses who worked at long-term care facilities in three regions of Japan and who were involved in caring for elderly patients. This study was conducted with the approval of the university’s ethics committee. Data were analyzed for 13 of the nurses. All of the 13 nurses were women in their 30s to 60s， with between 9 and 36 years of nursing experience. The most important aspect of the participants’ thinking and actions regarding end-of-life care was making an assessment of the elderly patients’ condition. Hence， the nurses cooperated with caregivers in caring for elderly patients so as to maintain their quality of life. The nurses explained the process of attending to patients on their deathbed to caregivers involved in the end-of-life care of elderly patients. By doing so， the nurses were able to alleviate the anxiety of the caregivers， and thus aided elderly patients at the end of life. The nurses working at long-term care facilities recognized the importance of caregivers, and consciously made efforts to encourage the caregivers to affirm the happiness they felt in providing assistance to elderly patients in their daily life and until death. It is challenging for long-term care facilities with only a limited number of nurses to provide elderly patients with support at the end of life; therefore， cooperation with caregivers is essential. This study suggests the need for considering an educational program for facilitating cooperation between nurses and caregivers utilizing the respective expertise of each profession.

The purpose of this study was to identify changes in ward nurses’ recognition of discharge support before and after intervention using feedback reports about patients’ at-home lifestyles after discharge.

The study design included qualitative induction research. The data were collected via semi-structured interviews before and after feedback reports, which assessed patients’ at-home lifestyles after discharge, were administered; data were analyzed from the viewpoint of recognition of discharge support at the ward. This study received approval from the ethics committee of the Institutional Review Board of our university.

The subjects included 11 ward nurses (1 man, 10 women). The mean age was 33.2 ± 9.6 with a rage 25 to 55 years old. With regard to recognition of discharge support before the feedback reports were administered, 5 categories were identified: 1) I’m aware of the life after discharge; 2) Low interest in home care; 3) Recuperation of not imagine after discharge; 4) It’s not positively tackled to discharge support; and 5) Don’t have enough knowledge of the discharge support. However, these changed after feedback was received, and 4 categories were then identified: 1) Interest of the home care; 2) I respect the intention of patients and their families; 3) Prepare to patients and their families are able to spend with confidence; and 4) To promote cooperation with home of relationship occupations.

　Recognition of discharge support by ward nurses changed from a focus on the nurses themselves to a focus on patients and their families, and nurses were then also able to imagine life after discharge. Overall, specific goals and methods of discharge support changed. This suggests that it is effective for ward nurses to receive feedback reports about patients’ at-home lifestyle after discharge.