Nursing Support of Home Hospice Caregivers on the Day of Patient Death.
Margaret F Clayton, Jennifer Hulett, Kirandeep Kaur and 3 others
PMID 28632241WHAT IT FOUND
On the day of a cancer patient’s death, hospice nurses mostly gave tangible, emotional, and informational support.
Spiritual talk was rare, but dyads without a declared religious affiliation had longer spiritual conversations.
Key findings
01Tangible support was most common, making up 35% of supportive communication, followed by emotional support at 25%, informational support at 23%, esteem at 15%, and networking at 3%.
02Spiritual discussion was observed in only 7 of 44 visits and made up 6% of average visit talk.
03Dyads who had declared no religious affiliation had a mean spiritual conversation duration of 30.0 seconds, compared with 3.7 seconds for those with a religious preference.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study included only 44 visits from 42 dyads, so the sample was small. It included only patients who received a hospice nurse visit on the day of death, so it does not describe families who did not receive such a visit. Spiritual support was added after the initial coding framework, and only 7 of 44 visits contained spiritual discussion. The analysis describes recorded conversations and cannot show that any type of support improved caregiver or bereavement outcomes. Nurses’ communication effectiveness was self-reported, and only six nurses held certification.
Declared interests
The study was supported by NIH grant NCIP01CA138317; the supplied text does not report author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that nurses should spend more time on spiritual talk or that spiritual conversations improve caregiver outcomes. This paper describes recorded conversations and does not test which support changes bereavement.