Table 3 List of practices by theme
Themes | ||
|---|---|---|
Providing care and ensuring comfort | 1. Provide patient care before the relatives enter the room, if necessary | 2. Support requests for relatives to perform care or care-sharing (co-care) for the patient, depending on the relatives |
3. Take care of relatives through care given to the patient | 4. Attend to physical needs | |
5. Ensure the comfort of relatives in the unit | 6. Propose a massage to relatives if trained to do so | |
7. Propose an approach using relaxation, hypnosis, or eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing, depending on the situation and the psychologist’s training | 8. Invite relatives to leave the room or to use the family room | |
9. Offer to provide some respite time for the family | 10. Allow family and friends to recreate a moment of intimacy with the sick person | |
11. Psychologically prepare relatives for their entry into the room | 12. Inquire about absent relatives | |
13. Ensure that relatives are surrounded and supported by an entourage | 14. Attend to children | |
15. If necessary, grant a request for make-up for the patient after death | 16. Conduct assistance interviews Personalise these in terms of objectives and content and in case of a request for euthanasia | |
17. Inform relatives about what they will see in the room before entering; explain the medical devices and equipment once inside accompanying them to the room | 18. Answer questions related to pain | |
19. Explain the care, its impact on the patient’s well-being, and its continuation | 20. Announce entry into agonic phase | |
21. Help relatives to recognise the signs of agony that will appear | 22. Explain the patient’s condition and visible symptoms | |
23. Answer questions regarding the patient’s level of awareness of reality | 24. Check whether the expectations of family members are being met | |
25. Inform relatives that caregivers will be entering the room more often because the patient can no longer call them | 26. Inform of the imminence of death | |
27. Respect the relatives’ wishes concerning the announcement of the death | 28. For relatives who wish to be present at the time of death, warn them that this may not be possible | |
29. Give relatives an opportunity to indicate that they do not wish to be present at the time of death | 30. Inform relatives that they can call whenever they want to, even at night | |
31. Anticipate the steps that will need to be taken after death | 32. Announce the death to relatives in person or by phone, provided that the nurse has received formal or informal training | |
33. Make physical contact with loved ones (touch or be touched) as the situation arises | 34. Receive the request for euthanasia | |
35. Talk about something other than the situation | Â | |
Communicating, informing, explaining Interacting | 36. Welcome and approach relatives; speak to them in the corridor if they are not familiar; show availability in a non-verbal way; establish a climate of trust | 37. Propose listening times, a silent presence |
38. Propose a formal interview; in a dedicated space; with others who are close to the patient; include several professionals; in person or by telephone; post a sign to indicate that the room is in use; schedule the interview outside regular hours if necessary; especially in the case of a request for euthanasia | 39. Defer non-urgent care if a close relatives visits | |
40. Consider the patient’s socio-cultural and religious practices | 41. Keep young children occupied during the visit | |
42. Propose that relatives stay the night | 43. Encourage family and friends to contact the doctors and members of the care staff | |
Mobilising interdisciplinary skills | 44. Work in pairs such as nurse and nursing assistant | 45. Propose a multi-professional interview |
46. Specifically include attending to young children during an interview with other professionals present, including the psychologist | 47. Hand off tasks between peers | |
48. Pass the patient care role on to other members of the PCU and to cultural representatives | 49. Serve a third-party function between the team, family, and patient | |
50. Design an interdisciplinary support project for relatives | 51. Consider setting up a weekly meeting with relatives to discuss the general functioning of the PCU and to inform them of the team’s position on certain issues with the participation of caregivers and palliative-care volunteers | |
52. Provide talking spaces | Â | |