Meeting the social, emotional and psychological needs of patients in a cancer palliative care setting: Student Nurses’ experiences from Karachi, Pakistan

Vol. 1 No. 1

Year: 2011

Issue: Feb-Apr

Title: Meeting the social, emotional and psychological needs of patients in a cancer palliative care setting: Student Nurses’ experiences from Karachi, Pakistan 

Author Name: Nasreen Sulaiman Lalani, Shabana D. Lakhani , Muslim Shah 

Synopsis:

Palliative care is an urgent humanitarian need for people worldwide with cancer and other chronic fatal diseases as it provide comfort and ease suffering. Nearly 80 % of the cancer patients in Pakistan present late in stages 3 & 4 with terminal disease.  In Pakistan, the concept of palliative care is in its infancy stage and need to be strengthened.  In the early 1980s, the primary focus of palliative care was to provide pain and symptom relief. However, later the scope of palliative care was extended to take a holistic approach of care with a major emphasis on improving the quality of life of patients and their families or caregivers in general. This paper intent to share palliative care experiences where the student nurses from a teaching hospital under their faculty supervision utilized palliative care principles while giving holistic care to their patients in a hospice care setting. These patients were in their end stages of cancer and were suffering from various physiological as well as psychosocial issues. Pain was the major concern among these patients, therefore, other than the pharmacological support for the pain relief, various non pharmacologic measures such as therapeutic communication, guided imagery, relaxation exercises, religious and other diversional activities were used with the patients and their families in order to ease their suffering, emotional distress and provide optimal comfort and support during the terminal stages of their illnesses. The outcomes were measured as lowered pain scores, patients’ verbalization of having positive attitude towards life, increased motivation, strong nurse patient relationship and enhanced participation in activities of daily living.