A Personalised Caring Approach at Home-Patients, Relatives and Nurses' Experiences of Specialised Palliative Care: An Integrative Literature Review.
Liselott Osberg Ferm, Margareta Karlsson, Anne Kasén and 1 others
PMID 39887669WHAT IT FOUND
Patients, relatives and nurses described specialised palliative home care as safe when teams were available, continuity was maintained and care was co-created around patient wishes.
Relatives' preparation and burden depended on clear information.
Key findings
01Specialised palliative home care was experienced as co-created when patients, relatives and nurses worked together around the patient's needs and wishes.
02Continuity, availability and trust in the specialist team made care feel safe, while unavailability, unfamiliar staff or unmet needs created insecurity.
03In an included survey of 922 patients, 99% of those with pain said they received sufficient medication after team contact, while relatives often felt emotionally unprepared.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The review covered only 18 articles, and 14 were from Sweden, so the findings may reflect Nordic home-care structures more than other settings. The search in Scopus was limited to nursing, and databases may use different terms, so relevant studies outside nursing may have been missed. Most evidence is about experiences, not tested interventions, so it cannot show which part of the team's work caused better care. The included studies were of high or medium quality, but mixed methods and non-randomised surveys were used, so causal certainty is limited.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that specialised palliative home care improves survival or quality of life. Most included studies described experiences, not tested interventions, and the review cannot separate the effects of team availability, information, symptom relief and family support.