Daily Life Issues of Female Terminal Cancer Patients Who Are Parenting and Living at home, and the Current Practice of Providing Support for Them / 日本プライマリ・ケア連合学会誌

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The aim of this study was to identify daily life issues of female terminal cancer patients who are parenting and living in their own home, and the current practice of providing support for them.Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with three visiting nurses who had experience in providing support to female patients with terminal cancer who were parenting while living at home. The data collected were categorized using a qualitative and inductive classification approach.Results: Categories related to issues included insufficient support systems; and lack of time to provide support to satisfy the needs of both the patients and their families because of rapid progression of the disease. Categories related to the current practice of provision of support included assistance to make home care possible when time was limited and support services were unavailable; understanding the situation the parenting patients with cancer were in and assisting their decision-making; relief of the patients' emotional and physical pain; assessing how well the family, including the children, understood the situation, and to support the family in expressing their feelings.Conclusion: This study revealed issues specific to providing support to parenting patients such as insufficient support services. Furthermore, visiting nurses were found to provide support with an understanding of the fact that the patients were parenting children.