• J Adv Nurs · Nov 2004

    Review

    Patient approaches to clinical conversations in the palliative care setting.

    • Alexandra Clover, Jan Browne, Peter McErlain, and Bernadette Vandenberg.
    • School of Nursing, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. ahcloverau@hotmail.com
    • J Adv Nurs. 2004 Nov 1;48(4):333-41.

    AimThe aim of this paper is to report a study exploring patients' understanding of their discussions about end-of-life care with nurses in a palliative care setting.BackgroundIt is assumed that nurses are central players in patients' major decisions about their care, yet minimal information is available about the complexity of patient-nurse interaction in palliative care, and patients' views of the impact of such interactions on decisions that are made.MethodA modified version of grounded theory was used to collect and analyse interview data collected in 2001-2002 with a convenience sample of 11 patients in a palliative care setting. Interviews focused on each patient's selection of two decisions they had made in the past 6 months that had involved nurses in the decision-making process.FindingsProcesses were identified between nurses and patients that facilitated or blocked open discussion and discernment of patients' preferences for care. Six approaches that patients used in their conversations with nurses about their care: wait and see, quiet acceptance, active acceptance, tolerating bossiness, negotiation and being adamant. These approaches are described in terms of how they assisted or impeded autonomous decision-making.ConclusionPalliative care patients often adopt passive roles and tend not to engage in important decision-making, for various reasons. Professionals need to be made aware of this, and should facilitate an open, trusting relationship with patients in order to ensure that important information passes freely in both directions. Professionals should learn to prioritize patient participation and negotiation in their work. With further research, it should be possible to identify the factors that will allow patients to take a more pro-active role in making decisions about their care, where desired.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…