The effectiveness of a nurse-led short term life review intervention in enhancing the spiritual and psychological well-being of people receiving palliative care: A mixed method study
Section snippets
What is already known about the topic?
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Life-review interventions have demonstrated their value for older people to re-evaluate their life events and promote their spiritual well-being.
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Conventional life-review interventions are too lengthy, beyond the physical tolerance of people receiving palliative care, and often conducted by psychologists
What this paper adds
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This research paper documents the first randomised controlled trial to test a nurse-led, short term life-review intervention for people receiving palliative care.
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The results demonstrate the effectiveness, acceptability and feasibility of short-term life-review intervention in enhancing the spiritual well-being of people receiving palliative care.
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The intervention settings are extended from hospital to day hospice care and home settings.
Aims & objectives
The aim of this interventional study is to evaluate the effectiveness of short term life review intervention and its implementation in palliative care settings. The objectives of the study are as follows:
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To evaluate the effectiveness of short term life review intervention in enhancing spiritual well-being and lowering anxiety and depression in people receiving palliative care; and
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To evaluate the delivery of interventions, and subjects’ participation and acceptance of short term life review
Outcome evaluation
A randomised control trial was employed to evaluate outcome variables with the following hypotheses:
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People receiving palliative care receiving the short term life review intervention would have higher levels of spiritual well-being than those without such an intervention;
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People receiving palliative care receiving the short term life review intervention would have lower levels of anxiety and depression than those without such an intervention.
In this study, people receiving palliative care from
Results
Data collection lasted for one year from February 2016 to January 2017. A total of 167 subjects were referred to join the study by primary doctors or nurses, and 109 subjects were successfully recruited. The intervention group was reduced by five after the first session interview because of a death, physical deterioration in another and three withdrawals. Fifteen participants from the control group dropped out because of death (n = 2), physical deterioration (n = 9) and withdrawal (n = 4). The
Effect on spiritual well-being and anxiety and depression
The findings of this study support the first hypothesis, that people receiving palliative care receiving the short term life review intervention would have enhanced spiritual well-being compared with those without such intervention. However, the second hypothesis, concerned with lowered anxiety and depression levels, was rejected.
The results of the current study are similar to those of previous empirical studies conducted in Japan (Ando et al., 2010, Ando et al., 2008; Sakaguchi and Okamura,
Conclusion
The nurse-led short term life review intervention is effective in enhancing the spiritual well-being of people receiving palliative care, particularly in two components of the spiritual domain, “life goals achieved” and “feeling good about oneself”. Individuals are able to reflect on their life stories and find new perspectives and joy through the process of life review. The implementation of short term life review requires the intervener to be an experienced nurse who has competent
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
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