Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Palliat Med. 2013 Mar;27(3):244-56. doi: 10.1177/0269216312440607. Epub 2012 Mar 26.
Current end-of-life care policy and guidance recognises the important contribution of family carers, recommending that their needs should be assessed to support them in their caring role. How regular carer assessment is to be achieved is unclear, particularly because there is no evidence-based tool for directly assessing carers' support needs that is suitable for use in end-of-life home care practice.
To obtain carers' perspectives of key aspects of support needed during provision of end-of-life care at home and to develop a carer support needs assessment tool suitable for use in everyday practice.
Qualitative using focus groups and telephone interviews. Thematic analysis uses a framework approach.
SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: 75 adult bereaved carers who were family members/friends of patients referred to five Hospice at Home services in the UK.
Carers' needs fell into two distinct groupings of key support areas or 'domains': support to enable them to provide care for their relative and more direct personal support for themselves. Many aspects of supportive input were common across domains, for example, anticipatory information, explanations or being included in the care process. Therefore, the tool was designed as a screening measure, to identify support needs requiring further detailed assessment.
The Carer Support Needs Assessment Tool (CSNAT) is an evidence-based direct measure of carers' support needs in 14 domains. It is short but comprehensive in approach and thus suitable for both end-of-life care research and practice. Further work has been undertaken to test its psychometric properties.
当前的临终关怀政策和指导认可了家庭护理员的重要贡献，建议评估他们的需求，以支持他们的护理角色。如何定期进行护理员评估尚不清楚，特别是因为没有基于证据的工具可以直接评估护理员的支持需求，而这种工具适合在临终关怀家庭护理实践中使用。
了解护理员在提供临终家庭护理时对关键支持方面的看法，并开发一种适合日常实践使用的护理员支持需求评估工具。
采用焦点小组和电话访谈的定性研究方法。主题分析采用框架方法。
设置/参与者：75 名成年丧亲护理员，他们是英国五家临终关怀居家服务机构转诊患者的家属/朋友。
护理员的需求分为两个截然不同的关键支持领域或“领域”：一是支持他们为亲人提供护理，二是为自己提供更直接的个人支持。许多支持性投入的方面在各个领域都很常见，例如，预期信息、解释或被纳入护理过程。因此，该工具被设计为一种筛选措施，以确定需要进一步详细评估的支持需求。
护理员支持需求评估工具（CSNAT）是一种基于证据的 14 个领域护理员支持需求的直接测量工具。它的方法简洁全面，因此既适合临终关怀研究，也适合实践。进一步的工作已经进行了测试其心理测量学特性。
