Family Carers in Palliative Care: A guide for health and social care professionals
Peter Hudson and Sheila Payne
Abstract
Support for the family is a key component of palliative care practice and philosophy, with both patient and family construed as the ‘unit of care’. However, there is not always formal acknowledgement of the importance of the family carer role, or that of friends, neighbours, and other non-professional, informal carers. Consequently, health and social care professionals find carer support work particularly challenging. Symptom management, personal care, and administering medications are just some of the tasks taken on by this group of non-professionals, and the impact of this role can have nega ... More
Support for the family is a key component of palliative care practice and philosophy, with both patient and family construed as the ‘unit of care’. However, there is not always formal acknowledgement of the importance of the family carer role, or that of friends, neighbours, and other non-professional, informal carers. Consequently, health and social care professionals find carer support work particularly challenging. Symptom management, personal care, and administering medications are just some of the tasks taken on by this group of non-professionals, and the impact of this role can have negative emotional, physical, financial and social implications on the care-giver. Furthermore, family carers consistently report unmet needs, and there has been a lack of intervention studies aimed at improving carer support. This book provides an evidence-based, practical guide to enable health and social care professionals to assess and respond to family carer needs. It also explores the wider sociological, policy, and research issues related to family carers and palliative care.
Keywords:
palliative care,
family carers,
intervention studies,
unmet needs,
policy,
research issues
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2008 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199216901 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2011 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199216901.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Peter Hudson, editor
Associate Professor and Director, Centre for Palliative Care Education and Research, St Vincent's Hospital and The University of Melbourne, Australia
Sheila Payne, editor
Professor, Help the Hospices Chair in Hospice Studies, International Observatory on End of Life Care, Lancaster University, UK
Author Webpage
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