Cancer nursing
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This study aims to discover (1) how relatives adjust to their new life situations following the death of a patient with cancer in hospice and (2) how those relatives have been supported by healthcare professionals both before and after the patient's death. The data were collected with a structured questionnaire administered to relatives of patients with cancer who died in a Finnish hospice in 1998 and 1999. The questionnaires were administered by the hospice staff to all family members who met the criteria specified (n = 589). ⋯ Most of the information they received concerned the patient's illness and treatment and daily condition. Communication was honest and based upon the relatives' needs. Emotional support before the patient's death consisted mainly of accepting the relative and listening to what relatives had to say.
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The purposes of this article are to explore the extent to which oncology unit patients with advanced cancer in Taiwan receive life-extending therapies and to examine the relationship of care goals (curative vs palliative) to levels of pain and family caregivers' concerns about pain reporting and analgesic administration. Forty pairs of patients with advanced cancer and their family caregivers (N = 80) were recruited from inpatient oncology units in Taiwan. Of these patients, 53% were receiving chemotherapy or radiotherapy for life-extending or curative reasons as opposed to palliative goals. ⋯ However, the family caregivers whose patients were receiving life-extending therapies were less concerned about using analgesics than were those caregivers whose patients were not receiving life-extending therapies. Finally, family caregivers' concerns about pain management as measured by the Barriers Questionnaire-Taiwan (BQT) form were related to family caregivers' reluctance to report their patients' pain. Implications of this study are discussed in terms of palliative care and pain educational programs.