BackgroundA compassionate community approach to palliative care provides important rationale for building community-based hospice volunteer capacity. In this project, we piloted one such capacity-building model in which volunteers and a nurse partnered to provide navigation support beginning in the early palliative phase for adults living in community. The goal was to improve quality of life by developing independence, engagement, and community connections.MethodsVolunteers received navigation training through a three-day workshop and then conducted in-home visits with clients living with advanced chronic illness over one year. A nurse navigator provided education and mentorship. Mixed method evaluation data was collected from clients, volunteer navigators, the nurse navigator, and other stakeholders.ResultsSeven volunteers were partnered with 18 clients. Over the one-year pilot, the volunteer navigators conducted visits in home or by phone every two to three weeks. Volunteers were skilled and resourceful in building connections and facilitating engagement. Although it took time to learn the navigator role, volunteers felt well-prepared and found the role satisfying and meaningful. Clients and family rated the service as highly important to their care because of how the volunteer helped to make the difficult experiences of aging and advanced chronic illness more livable. Significant benefits cited by clients were making good decisions for both now and in the future; having a surrogate social safety net; supporting engagement with life; and ultimately, transforming the experience of living with illness. Overall the program was perceived to be well-designed by stakeholders and meeting an important need in the community. Sustainability, however, was a concern expressed by both clients and volunteers.ConclusionsVolunteers providing supportive navigation services during the early phase of palliative care is a feasible way to foster a compassionate community approach to care for an aging population. The program is now being implemented by hospice societies in diverse communities across Canada.
Background: Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) was legalized in Canada in June, 2016. The Canadian government's decision to legislate assisted dying, an approach that requires a high degree of obligation, precision, and delegation, has resulted in unique challenges for health care and for nursing practice. The purpose of this study was to better understand the implications of a legislated approach to assisted death for nurses' experiences and nursing practice. Methods: The study used a qualitative approach guided by Interpretive Description. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 59 registered nurses and nurse practitioners. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and managed using qualitative analysis software. Analysis followed a procedure of data immersion, open coding, constant comparative analysis, and the construction of a thematic and interpretive account. Results: Nurses in this study described great variability in how MAiD had been enacted in their work context and the practice supports available to guide their practice. The development of systems to support MAiD, or lack thereof, was largely driven by persons in influential leadership positions. Workplaces that supported a range of nurses' moral responses to MAiD were most effective in supporting nurses' well-being during this impactful change in practice. Participants cited the importance of teamwork in providing high quality MAiD-related care; although, many worked without the benefit of a team. Nursing work related to MAiD was highly complex, largely because of the need for patient-centered care in systems that were not always organized to support such care. In the absence of adequate practice supports, some nurses were choosing to limit their involvement in MAiD. Conclusions: Data obtained in this study suggested that some workplace contexts still lack the necessary supports for nurses to confidently meet the precision required of a legislated approach to MAiD. Without accessible palliative care, sufficient providers, a supportive team, practice supports, and a context that allowed nurses to have a range of responses to MAiD, nurses felt they were legally and morally at risk. Nurses seeking to provide the compassionate care consistent with such a momentous moment in patients' lives, without suitable supports, find themselves caught between the proverbial rock and hard place.
Aims and objectives To describes nurses' moral experiences with Medical Assistance in Dying in the Canadian context. Background Nurses perform important roles in Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada and do so within a unique context in which Medical Assistance in Dying is provided through healthcare services and where accessibility is an important principle. International literature indicates that participating in Medical Assistance in Dying can be deeply impactful for nurses and requires a high degree of moral sense‐making. Design A qualitative interview study guided by Interpretive Description using the COREQ checklist. Results Fifty‐nine nurses from across Canada participated in the study. The decision to participate in Medical Assistance in Dying was influenced by family and community, professional experience and nurses' proximity to the act of Medical Assistance in Dying. Nurses described a range of deep and sometimes conflicting emotional reactions provoked by Medical Assistance in Dying. Nurses used a number of moral waypoints to make sense of their decision including patient choice, control and certainty; an understanding that it was not about the nurse; a commitment to staying with patients through suffering; consideration of moral consistency; issues related to the afterlife; and the peace and gratitude demonstrated by patients and families. Discussion The depth of nurses' intuitional moral responses and their need to make sense of these responses are consistent with Haidt's theory of moral experience in which individuals use reasoning primarily to explain their moral intuition and in which moral change occurs primarily through compassionate social interaction. Further, work on the moral identity of nursing provides robust explanation of how nurses' moral decisions are contextually and relationally mediated and how they seek to guard patient vulnerability, even at their own emotional cost. Conclusion Medical Assistance in Dying is impactful for nurses, and for some, it requires intensive and ongoing moral sense‐making. Relevance to clinical practice There is a need to provide support for nurses' moral deliberation and emotional well‐being in the context of Medical Assistance in Dying care.
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