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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Bereaved informal cancer carers making sense of their palliative care experiences at home | | Author(s) | W K Tim Wong, Jane Ussher |
| Journal title | Health and Social Care in the Community, vol 17, no 3, May 2009 |
| Pages | pp 274-282 |
| Source | http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/hsc |
| Keywords | Bereavement ; Informal care ; Cancer ; Therapeutic services [domiciliary] ; Qualitative Studies ; Australia. |
| Annotation | This qualitative study explored the positive meanings constructed and ascribed to the experiences of providing palliative care at home by bereaved informal cancer carers, a group of individuals who are in a position to make sense of their caring experiences as a coherent whole. 22 bereaved cancer carers in New South Wales (NSW), Australia were recruited through cancer support groups, cancer clinics and the Cancer Council NSW. They were interviewed as part of a larger mixed-method study examining the experience of informal cancer care. The findings indicated that these bereaved carers gave accounts that accentuated the benefit and satisfaction derived from providing direct palliative care at home, which enabled them to construct positive meanings associated with their participation in the dying process, and as a result to ascribe subjectively meaningful interpretations to their loved ones' death and their sense of loss. This included a sense of reward for doing something good, meeting the expressed needs of the patient, continuing with normal life as much as possible, improving the condition of the relationship, and meeting cultural expectations of the right thing to do. Being present at the point of death was positioned as rewarding because it facilitated the process of saying goodbye, fostered inclusion of others, provided closure and was as spiritual experience. These findings suggest that there are positive and rewarding aspects associated with providing informal cancer care in a palliative context, and these aspects were pertinent and meaningful for cares in their endeavours to reconcile the difficulties and loss they experienced. This has implications for the prevention and amelioration of distress experienced by informal cancer carers, and suggests that future research should not ignore the positive aspects of providing palliative care. (RH) |
| Accession Number | CPA-090728203 A |
| Classmark | DW: P6: CK: N3: 3DP: 7YA |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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