HOSPICE CARE: CRITICAL ROLE BEHAVIORS RELATED TO SELF-CARE AND ROLE SUPPLEMENTATION (CAREGIVERS, ILL, TERMINAL, PALLIATIVE).
Contributors: University of California, San Francisco.
Published: 1985
Number of pages: 140
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Most of the research conducted about hospice care has been focused on the types of hospice services provided or on how these services affected certain outcomes. None, however, has determined the specific behaviors associated with the hospice caregiver role. The purpose of this study was to identify, describe, and categorize the role behaviors of hospice caregivers that were critical to supportive care as perceived by hospice clients in the home-hospice setting.

One hundred-three terminally ill patients and their primary care persons from four hospices in northern California provided 322 critical incidents (108 from mailed questionnaires; 214 from telephone interviews) that described situations in which hospice caregivers provided care or solved some problem related to the physical, psychosocial, or spiritual needs of clients.

Using an inductive process, the critical incidents were classified into a typology of hospice caregiver behaviors. The typology consisted of 8 broad areas, 27 major categories, and 76 subcategories of caregiver behaviors. From the 27 major behavioral categories, four distinct hospice caregiver roles were identified: provider of physical care, provider of psychosocial support, resource person, and client teacher. These four roles were then related to a proposed model of hospice care. In this model, hospice clients (patients and families) were seen as needing assistance to move through the terminal illness-induced transitional state of dying. Previous conceptualization of the nursing therapeutics of self-care (Orem, 1971, 1980) and role supplementation (Meleis, 1975) were used to explain how the needs that were identified during the dying transition were met by hospice caregivers. The therapeutic of self-care was viewed as hospice caregiver actions intended to aid hospice clients in meeting their self-care needs. It was shown that caregivers could meet client needs by providing wholly compensatory care (all care provided by hospice caregiver), partially compensatory care (some care provided by caregiver), and supportive-educative care (caregiver acts only in a consultative manner to the client). The therapeutic of role supplementation was seen as caregiver behaviors that assisted clients in learning the role of (primary) care person. Caregivers carried out this therepeutic by engaging in role modeling and role clarification.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-08, Section: B, page: 2623.

Thesis (D.N.S.)--UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO, 1985.

School code: 0034.