Palliative Nursing Commons^™

Improving Family Nurse Practitioners’ Knowledge Of Palliative Care Resources, Michelle L. Bond

Theses and Graduate Projects

The shift in healthcare indicates Americans are living longer with progressive chronic illnesses subsequently reducing quality-of-life. Primary care providers have opportunities to assess the need for and implement palliative care to offer holistic symptom management to improve patient’s quality-of-life. The purpose of this scholarly project, guided by Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring, is to assess primary care providers knowledge and comfort regarding initiating palliative care while determining if additional education improves their familiarity. The objectives were to review current palliative care literature identifying barriers and inadequacies, determine evidence-based practice to develop an educational presentation and resources to improve communication, …

Advance Care Planning Education For Older Adults, Jamie E. Seaquist

Theses and Graduate Projects

Advanced care planning guides health care professionals and surrogate decision-makers choices on end of life (EOL) care when individuals are no longer able to speak for themselves. Advanced care plans can benefit patients in their last six months of life by improving their quality of life and by reducing family members anxiety, depression, and stress when dealing with EOL treatment options. Aside from these benefits, poor communication and knowledge deficits often create barriers when medical staff, families or patients try to broach the subject of EOL care. Barriers can be overcome when health care professionals facilitate advanced care planning conversations …

Effects Of Palliative Care On Nurses’ Knowledge And Attitudes, Daniel Kerr

MSN Capstone Projects

Heart failure (HF) is a chronic, progressive disease that affects 6 million Americans (Ng & Wong, 2017). During the course of the disease, patients have worsening symptoms and need increasing levels of care from both medical staff and home caregivers. Often, these caregivers are family members or friends who spend a significant amount of their free time assisting the patient, leading to significant stress and burden on the caregivers. Recent changes in recommendations from the American Heart Association (AHA) include Palliative Care (PC) consultation for patients diagnosed with advanced stage heart failure, but many physicians have not included a PC …

Exploring The Lived Experience Of Adolescent Caregivers, Abbigale Laurentius

Honors Theses

In today’s society, the population is aging, and any member of the family could find themselves in the role as an informal caregiver. Adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 years old may have these caregiving responsibilities, and it is imperative that healthcare professionals recognize and support this change of roles. A literature review revealed a general lack of research from within the last five years regarding adolescent caregivers. Those studies that were analyzed in the review presented themes of depression, anxiety, lack of education, and insufficient social supports for the adolescent. An unfolding case study was then designed …

Evidence-Based End-Of-Life Comfort Care Guidelines, Myla Maranan

Student Scholarly Projects

Practice Problem: In the absence of end-of-life (EOL) comfort care guidelines, the nurses in a medical-surgical unit are apprehensive about caring for patients in their active stage of dying, which leads to abandoning the values of holistic and patient-centered care.

PICOT: The PICOT question that guided this project was: "How do acute care bedside nurses (P) who utilize the evidence-based comfort care guidelines (I) compare to not using the evidence-based guidelines (C) perceive their confidence in their capability to provide holistic and patient-centered care (O) during the active onset of the patient's end-of-life stage (T)?"

Evidence: The literature indicated …

Assisting Nursing Students In Their Development Of Empathy: A Guide To Fostering Requisite Skills For The Art Of Empathetic Communication, Susan Mee

Open Educational Resources

This 7-week lesson plan is designed for use in clinical nursing courses. It is designed specifically for use by Nursing faculty teaching in the absence of state required patient facing clinical opportunity due to COVID restrictions. The lesson plan describes pedagogical techniques and provides video and education OER resources designed to help support the development of empathetic communication skills over 7 weeks. Refection and video debriefing techniques will be employed. Role play will culminate in the group presentation project of a brief video modeling effective therapeutic empathetic communication.

Hospice Families Shared Experiences With Time-Of-Death Visits, Katherine S. Katzenberger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The death of someone we love is a life-altering experience and may happen in a variety of settings. Hospice patients may die in their homes with their loved ones caring for them in their last moments of life. Families may receive a visit at the time of death from their hospice nurse. Few studies have been conducted looking at the lived experiences of home hospice families that have received a visit at the time of death from hospice. To better meet these families’ needs, the researcher conducted a study to explore and better understand their lived experiences. A qualitative phenomenological …

Palliative Nursing: The Core Of Covid-19 Care, Polly Mazanec

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Nursing Attitudes To Hospice Care In The Intensive Care Unit, Claudia Lacivita

Master of Science in Nursing Theses and Projects

Nurses deliver care to patients 24 hours per day and are experts in the care of critically ill patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). The critical care nurse is trained to assess, treat, and monitor severely ill patients to facilitate their recovery, but may often feel ill-prepared and lacking the support usually available to the hospice or palliative care nurse. It also can be difficult to refocus when the desired outcome changes from stabilizing and getting a critically ill patient better to hospice or end-of-life care (EOLC). The purpose of this project was to improve the delivery of care …

Spiritual Dimensions Of Care: Need For Spiritual Care Interventions In Nursing Clinical Practice, Jillian Jack

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Empirical research has identified emerging evidence concerning the value and importance of spirituality in the provision of nursing care. Spiritual well-being has important implications for a patient’s well-being and there is evidence that points to the association between spirituality, individual healthcare outcomes, and quality of life (QOL). Assisting patients in meeting their spiritual needs is also recognized internationally. Despite the fact that spiritual care is an essential part of nursing care, there remains a gap concerning spiritual care practices in the nursing clinical environment. The magnitude of the problem has to do with the lack of spiritual care education training. …

The Evaluation Of An Amino Acid- Oral Re-Hydration Solution (Enterade®) To Improve Quality Of Life In Solid Tumor Cancer Patients By Reduction Of Chemotherapy Related Diarrhea, Holly Chitwood

DNP Projects

Background: Chemotherapy related diarrhea (CRD) is a common adverse effect of many chemotherapy agents used to treat cancer. CRD negatively affects quality of life (QOL) for cancer patients and often results in treatment delays, hold, dose reductions, and hospitalizations affecting morbidity and mortality. Proper management of CRD with novel therapeutics is needed to improve the quality of life and patient outcomes for this population.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of a proprietary amino acid-oral rehydration solution (AA-ORS) known as Enterade® to reduce the severity of CRD, to improve patient reported QOL among patients over …

Promotion Of Most Forms Through Education About Importance Of Advance Care Planning In Seriously Ill Patients, Nidhi More

DNP Projects

Abstract

Purpose: To establish the importance of early Advance Care Planning (ACP) and improve the utilization of Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment (MOST) forms in seriously ill patients by educating providers and nurses to identify patients who meet specified criteria. The goals of this intervention are reduction of readmissions and better quality of life for this patient population.

Methods: A quasi-experimental design was used for evaluation of an Educational intervention to promote MOST forms, Advance Directives (AD) and Palliative Care (PC) consults. A retrospective and prospective chart review was conducted to determine the number of patients who met criteria …

Sleep-Related Problems, Sleep-Related Distress, And Sleep-Related Functional Status Among Adult Inpatients Receiving Palliative Care, Lisa C. Sievers

Theses and Dissertations

Palliative care patients may be at a higher risk for sleep-related problems and their negative effects compared to the general population, yet limited sleep research has been done with this population. The purpose of this dissertation was to determine prevalence rates for excessive sleepiness, insomnia, restless legs syndrome (RLS), and high risk for sleep apnea (HRSA); examine relationships between the aforementioned sleep-related problems, sleep-related distress (SD), and sleep-related functional status (SFS); and to determine which sleep-related problem measures along with age and gender predicted SD and SFS among a sample of adult palliative care inpatients. Secondary aims were to understand …

Challenges In Teaching Palliative Care Module Virtually During Covid-19 Era, Shanaz Hussein Cassum, Khairunnisa Mansoor, Amina Hirji, Amber David, Amina Aijaz Khowaja

School of Nursing & Midwifery

With the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the global community, routine activities of universities, offices, and industries have been hindered. People are being forced to rethink the ways of working virtually from home for providing education, business, and health services in this social distancing during the COVID era. This sudden shift also posed challenges of online teaching in a private university, in urban Karachi, Pakistan. The Aga Khan University, School of Nursing and Midwifery recently conducted an online palliative care module using a virtual learning environment and Microsoft Teams for Trainee Nurse Interns. Although the first experience of online teaching and learning …

Empowering Home Care Nurses To Begin End-Of-Life Conversations, Angela Oujiri

Theses and Graduate Projects

In the United States, some people find the discussion of death and dying a difficult topic to discuss. This difficulty has often delayed conversations about goals and wishes until very late in the healthcare journey. Delays come with a significant cost to both patients and the entire healthcare system. Palliative care is a special type of care meant to provide an extra layer of support to patients and families who are living with serious illness; however, the practice of such care encounters has many challenges for patients, families, physicians, and nurses. Home care nurses are instrumental in the delivery of …

Utilizing Watson's Theory Of Caring To Develop A Palliative Care Proposal For Olmsted Medical Center, Tammie Johnson

Theses and Graduate Projects

Palliative care is aimed at alleviating the suffering of patients with serious or chronic illnesses. Literature examined to determine the needs of seriously or chronically ill patients and their farnilies found patients to have physical, psychosocial, and spiritual needs while coping with their illness. In addition, patients' family needed support in physical care of their loved ones, as well as information and psychosocial needs for themselves. The purpose of this project is to develop a proposal for an inpatient palliative care program for Olmsted Medical Center's (OMC's) consideration, Watson's Theory of Caring was utilized in the development of a palliative …

Holistic Understanding, Bridget Burness

Theses and Graduate Projects

In 2007, the Association of American Retired People (AARP) published its Funeral and Burial Planners survey key findings that revealed 12 percent were interested in green burial and that practitioners should provide education on environmentally friendly options to this audience. Nurses are currently knowledgeable about Advance Care Directives (ACD) for cessation of care. To gain a better understanding of nurses' attitudes toward green burial, a plan to create a holistic nurse-learning circle was developed to discuss the Funeral Rule, pre-burial planning for green funerals and flameless cremation, and the importance of collaborating with funeral directors. To facilitate this group, a …

Reiki For Pain Control, Jeffrey L. Burt

Theses and Graduate Projects

Hemodialysis is a procedure used to remove waste products and electrolytes from the bloodstream when the kidneys are no longer working. In addition to removing waste products and unwanted electrolytes, the process also removes some medications as well; 60% of the most commonly used analgesics are removed during dialysis. For renal patients who experience chronic pain as a result of their illness, this is a serious problem. Dialysis patient are held to the same medication regulations regarding frequency and dosing as the general hospital population, leaving them without pain coverage for longer periods of time. The introduction of a complimentary …

Communication Metaphor Of Patient Prognosis In The Spirit Of Hope, Dory Hanks

Theses and Graduate Projects

Prognosis for terminally ill patients is intended to serve the purpose of educating patients on the expected clinical outcome of their illness. This information is generally communicated to a patient by their primary physician when options for fufiher treattnent or "cure" are limited. Learning a prognosis may be helpful to some patients, while burdensome to others. A review of the literature reveals many barriers to effective communication of prognosis. The purpose of this project is to develop a metaphor for enhanced communication of prognosis to be used by hospice nurses that incorporates a caring perspective on living with hope during …