Digital Commons Network^™

Ethical Considerations For Hospice Patients In Inpatient Settings: A Systematic Review And Thematic Analysis, Matthew D. Harry

Honors Theses and Capstones

Hospice care is intended to prioritize comfort, dignity, symptom management, and quality of life for individuals with life-limiting illness. However, when hospice-eligible patients are managed within inpatient hospital settings, significant ethical challenges frequently emerge due to the tension between comfort-focused care and the curative, intervention-driven structure of acute care medicine. This paper presents a systematic literature review and thematic analysis examining the ethical considerations surrounding hospice patients in inpatient settings, with particular attention to clinical decision-making, communication, prognostic uncertainty, moral distress among nurses, and conflicts involving patient autonomy and family wishes. A structured review of peer-reviewed literature was conducted using …

Understanding Hospital-Based Nurse End-Of-Life Care, Knowledge, And Comfort: A Quality Improvement Project, Emma Doran

Honors Theses and Capstones

Providing physical, emotional, and spiritual care to patients at the end of life (EOL) can relieve their suffering and the pain experienced by loved ones in their presence. As death approaches, patients’ symptoms may require increased comfort measures, and it is imperative that all nurses be properly trained and prepared to provide this care. In this quality improvement (QI) project, the End-of-Life Professional Caregiver Survey (EPCS) and demographic and experiential questions were administered in the form of a Qualtrics survey to nurses working on an acute care inpatient unit at a healthcare organization in New England. 18 survey responses were …

Facilitating Palliative Care In A Critical Access Hospital System: Implementation Of Screening And Educational Interventions, Michele Lovell

DNP Scholarly Projects

BACKGROUND: The United States health care system faces the dual challenge of an aging population with a concomitant increase in the presence of chronic and serious illness, the care of which accounts for the nation’s largest expenditure of burgeoning healthcare costs. Palliative care is specialized care for people with serious illness aimed at reducing suffering, optimizing quality of life, and enhancing medical decision making. An ample evidence base demonstrates that palliative care increases both quality of care and patient and family satisfaction while also reducing associated costs. The aim of this quality improvement project was to facilitate palliative care services …

Giving Effective And Timely Hospice Education To Lessen Participant Stress (Get Helps), Caroline Rose Carter

Master's Theses and Capstones

In 2022, 1.72 million people chose to use hospice as their end-of life care. This is a 6.8% increase from 2019, and the number of patients who choose to use hospice is increasing (Summers, 2022). The aim of this quality improvement (QI) study was to decrease levels of stress reported by the patient and informal caretakers by combining the information from the hospice program’s admission packet and other approved handouts, while standardizing the verbiage through a Flesch-Kincaid readability scale to an eighth-grade reading level. Pre-survey perceived stress scores averaged 22.97 on a modified Perceived-Stress Scale, and the mean of the …

Annual Reports Of The Town Officers Ossipee, New Hampshire 2021 For The Fiscal Year Ending December 31, 2021, Vital Statistics For 2021., Ossipee Town Representatives

Ossipee, NH Annual Reports

This is an annual report containing vital statistics for a town/city in the state of New Hampshire.

Knowledge Gaps: Addressing The Need For Palliative Care Education For University Nursing Students, Odin Todd Bickford

Honors Theses and Capstones

This study aimed to analyze undergraduate nursing students’ primary palliative care knowledge to determine if there is a need for further palliative care education in undergraduate, pre-licensure curriculums. To make this determination, this study utilized the Undergraduate Nursing Palliative Care Knowledge Survey (UNPCKS), created by Dr. Andra Davis and Dr. Megan Lippe, a 27-question survey that addresses the 6 domains of holistic palliative care; i) holistic, patient-centered care (Whole person care), ii) collaborative (Interprofessional), iii) understanding of primary palliative care as a resource and how to support patients/families (Advocacy and Knowledge of Primary Palliative Care), iv) the importance of understanding …

State Of New Hampshire Annual Report Of Coos County For The Year Ending December 31, 2020., Coos County Representatives

Coos County, NH Annual Reports

This is an annual report containing vital statistics for a county in the state of New Hampshire.

Implementing Serious Illness Conversations In A Gastrointestinal Oncology Clinic: A Mixed Method Evaluation Of A Quality Improvement Initiative In A Boston Hospital, Rhaea N. Photopoulos

DNP Scholarly Projects

INTRODUCTION: Many times, advanced care planning happens too late in patients with metastatic gastrointestinal cancer, patients and families are not educated on prognostic awareness and are often not well and poorly equipped to make informed end of life decisions.

AVAILABLE KNOWLEDGE: A Serious Illness Conversation guide was developed and implemented in a Boston hospital to aid practitioners (oncology nurse practitioners and oncologists) in facilitating advanced care planning. The aim of this study was to describe provider experience with the conversation guide and understand facilitators and barriers to implementation of advanced care planning.

METHODS: The Plan Do Study Act Method of …

Post Discharge Follow-Up Telephone Calls For Patients Who Received Hospital Based Palliative Care Services To Improve Quality Of Care And Outcomes: A Pilot Study, Katherine Adams

DNP Scholarly Projects

Background

There is a rising number of patients with chronic health conditions concurrent with an increasing number of hospital readmissions within 30 days and emergency department visits. Predominantly based in acute care facilities, palliative care services have been effective in improving the quality of life in patients with chronic health conditions. However, the largest population that could benefit from palliative care services is community based in the home setting.

Purpose

The purpose of this project was the implement and evaluate follow-up telephone calls made in addition to visiting nursing (VNA) services to detect in early decline in patients who have …

2017 Undergraduate Research Conference Award Winners Announced, Kassidy Taylor

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Two Cultures Of Caring: A Comparative Study, Lisa Armstrong, Chistina Polito

Honors Theses and Capstones

There is much that the UK and the US could and should learn from each other to understand the quality of end-of-life care, through comparison of practice, analysis of care patterns and via original research (Higginson, 2005, p.170). Although comparisons between end-of-life care in the United Kingdom and United States have demonstrated similarities and disparities in many contexts, there is little evidence of research that directly compares nursing perspectives between the two Atlantic partners. This research explores nurse’s perceptions and experiences of caring for people within a hospice context and identifies themes of commonalities and disparities in theory and practice, …

Grief, Grieving And Death, E Elaine Andrews-Ahearn

Master's Theses and Capstones

Grief is a journey one can only take alone. There is no rehearsal for it, no primer courses, it cannot be measured or timed. No one can do it with you, or for you. There is never an end, completion, finish line. There is not one prescribed way to do it, nor is there a tidy process. Grief is messy. Most importantly, grief is something that no one ever escapes. It surrounds us all the time, it is layered in our lives, permeates the atmosphere. It is ubiquitous. There are many types and degrees of grief; there are deep pockets …

The Relationship Between Autonomy And Job Satisfaction Among Registered Nurses, Morgan A. Taylor

Master's Theses and Capstones

With the state of health care today, it is essential to determine the level of job satisfaction among registered nurses as they are important members of the health care team. With the ongoing nursing shortage, identifying strategies to improve retention among nurses will help retain well qualified nurses and recruit the new generation of nurses. Autonomy is a factor that often plays a role in the quality of an individuals work environment, thus the current study was conducted to determine if a relationship exists between nursing job satisfaction and autonomy.

A quantitative, correlational study was conducted with 100 registered nurses …