• Ina Marie Thon Aamodt, Irene Lie, and Ragnhild Hellesø.
• Assistant Professor, Lovisenberg Diaconal University College, Lovisenberg gata 15b, 0456 Oslo, Norway.
• Int J Palliat Nurs. 2013 Aug 1; 19 (8): 396-402.

BackgroundPeople with cancer usually like to spend as much time as possible at home rather than in the hospital. Nurses have a pivotal role when patients are discharged to a unit in hospital or from hospital to the community health-care system.AimTo explore how frontline surgical nurses assess patients with gastrointestinal cancer receiving palliative care and the implications of their assessment and competency for the patients' discharge destinations.MethodsA descriptive exploratory approach was used involving focus group interviews with a purposive sample of ten nurses from an inpatient gastroenterology surgical ward at a university hospital in Norway. Transcriptions of the interviews were analysed using Kvale and Brinkman's thematic approach.ResultsTwo overall themes emerged that had implications for the nurses' recommendations for optimal patient follow-up care after discharge: 'the complexity of and fluctuations in the patients' health status' and 'considering the competency of the nurses at the discharge destinations'.ConclusionsThis study illustrates surgical nurses' perspectives on the discharge destinations of cancer patients receiving palliative care. The findings have implications for initiatives aimed at providing more home-based palliative care.

9 keywords...

hide…