Development and Validity of the Nursing Care Scale and Nurse's Difficulty Scale in Caring for Dying Patients With Cancer and Their Families in General Hospitals in Japan.
Yusuke Kanno, Kazuki Sato, Megumi Shimizu and 6 others
PMID 30063557WHAT IT FOUND
Two new scales help nurses assess their own care and difficulties when working with dying cancer patients and families.
The tools cover symptom management, treatment reassessment, family explanations, and dignity before and after death, providing a structured way to review end-of-life practice.
Key findings
01The validated scales identify four key domains of end-of-life nursing care and difficulty: symptom management, reassessment of current treatment and nursing care, explanation to the family, and respect for the patient and family’s dignity before and after death.
02The scales demonstrated sufficient validity and reliability for use as self-assessment tools or for evaluating education programs.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The scales have a small number of items and may not capture all detailed aspects of nursing care before and after death. Participants were limited to nurses caring for cancer patients in hospitals, so the scales have not been tested for nurses working in home care settings or those caring for patients with non-malignant terminal conditions like heart failure or dementia.
Declared interests
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume these scales are validated for all end-of-life nursing contexts. The study only included nurses caring for cancer patients in hospital settings, so their use for home care nurses or those caring for non-cancer terminal illnesses is not supported by this data.