• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.50-54
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• 2022

Antibiotics are commonly prescribed medications in the hospice and palliative care setting, as well as in many other healthcare settings. The overuse or negligent use of antibiotics is associated with the harmful consequence of fostering the development of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Thus, there is an urgent need to critically examine and audit antibiotic use in all aspects of healthcare. In the status quo, there is a lack of consistent standards and guidelines surrounding the use of antibiotics in hospice and palliative care settings, leading to significant variations in how antibiotics are prescribed and administered in end-of-life care. It is apparent that greater thought needs to go into antibiotic decisions for patients receiving hospice or palliative care, especially considering the harmful consequences of the overprescription of antibiotics. The literature suggests that many clinicians prescribe antibiotics inappropriately for patients who would not benefit from their use or prescribe them without adequate documentation. Clinicians should be deliberate about when they prescribe antibiotics and adhere to the appropriate documentation standards and procedures within their institution or community. Future research should seek to generate generalizable knowledge about which patients will benefit most from antibiotic therapy during end-of-life care.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.374-381
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• 2011

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a hospice palliative care performance measure which would cover more than just physical symptoms or quality of life. Methods: Through an intensive literature review, the author chose questions that measured aspects of physical, emotional, spiritual, social, or practical domains pertinent to hospice palliative care for inclusion in the scale. Content validation of the questions was established by 15 hospice palliative care professionals. A preliminary Hospice Palliative Care Performance Scale (HPCPS) of 20 questions was administered to 134 pairs of terminal cancer patients from 5 hospice palliative care units and their main family caregiver. A validation study was conducted to evaluate construct validity and internal consistency. Results: Factor analysis showed 14 significant questions in five subscales; Physical, Emotional, Spiritual, Social, and Patient' rights. There were no significant differences between the ratings by patients and family members except for three out of the 14 questions. The measure demonstrated construct validity, and Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ of the subscales ranged from .73 to .79. Conclusion: The HPCOS demonstrated acceptable validity and reliability. It can be used to assess effectiveness of hospice palliative care for terminal cancer patients in practice and research.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.183-197
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• 2020

Purpose: In this study, the researchers closely investigated the psychosocial problems faced by terminal cancer patients and their family members in hospice palliative care units. Methods: The investigators conducted four sessions of art therapy intervention programs for the terminal cancer patients and their family members, carried out in-depth interviews about the influence of the cancer experience on their family function and quality of life, and analyzed their experiences using grounded theory methodology. Results: After providing autonomous written informed consent, six pairs of terminally ill cancer patients and their family members, accounting for a total of 17 participants with the inclusion of additional family members who took part sporadically, took part in the art therapy intervention and interviews. The raw data, in the form of verbatim records, were analyzed according to the procedures of grounded theory (open, axial, and selective coding). Through these processes, a total of 154 concepts, 56 subcategories, and 13 categories were identified. Families were classified into four types according to their family function, quality of life, and attitude toward death. Though the art therapy intervention, patients and their family members experienced three stages over time. Conclusion: This research focused on essential aspects of the family relationships and the art therapy experiences of terminal cancer patients and their family members through an art therapy intervention in the context of hospice palliative care. Based on these observations, the researchers constructed a theoretical rationale for art therapy interventions delivered to patients and their family members in the process of hospice palliative care.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.59-66
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• 2006

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.46-55
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• 2021

Purpose: This pilot study aimed to examine the influence of death counseling on perceptions, preparedness, and anxiety regarding death and dying among family caregivers of hospice patients. Methods: Death counseling developed based on the SPIKES model was provided to 37 family caregivers in a hospice and palliative care unit. Perceptions, preparedness, and anxiety regarding death were assessed with a self-administered structured questionnaire, and participants' scores before and after counseling were compared using the paired t-test. Results: Significant changes were found in perceptions, preparedness, and anxiety regarding death after counseling. Compared to before counseling, the scores for perceptions of death (t=-4.90, P<0.001) and preparedness for death and dying (t=-16.23, P<0.001) improved, while anxiety (t=3.72, P=0.001) decreased after counseling. Some changes were also found in the types of support that family caregivers needed to prepare for the death of their family members in the hospice care unit. Conclusion: The findings demonstrate that death counseling could help family caregivers prepare for the death of their loved ones. Hospice and palliative care providers should play a key role in supporting family caregivers of hospice patients by developing strategies for counseling.

• Korean Journal of Hospice Care
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.29-45
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• 2007

People in the end of life and their families suffer in their physical disease and other aspects as a whole person. They need hospice care to palliate their total suffering in physical, emotional, social and also spiritual aspect through professional hospice team. To care their whole personal needs, hospice team must be a multi-discipline team which consists of medical doctors, nurses, social workers, pastors and volunteers. Recently those who die in hospice palliative care unit have trend to increase more than in home year by year. So it is necessary to develop the nursing intervention program to be performed by multi-discipline team approach for in-patient of hospice palliative care unit. The purposes of this study were to develop of wholistic hospice nursing intervention program for inpatient of hospice palliative care unit. The subjects of study were collected from 30 patients those who were over 18 years old and admitted in hospice palliative care unit of S hospital in P city with agreement in hospice palliative care in their terminal disease. The period of data collection was from December 15, 2003 to March 15, 2004. The result were as follows : 1. The result of Wholistic Hospice Nursing Program's development was as follow : A Wholistic Hospice Nursing Program was developed by me in this study is one of the service program for hospice palliative care unit. It was named as ‘Rainbow Program’ to be approached easily by hospice patients. The purposes of it are to improve the quality of life of the terminal patients with their dignity, to help them live in abundant and meaningful in their lives, to care them in peaceful in dying process with understanding them in whole personal, and also to palliate the grief and suffering of the bereaved. It was provided by hospice professionals(nurses, medical doctors, social worker, pastors, art therapists) and volunteers those who were educated in hospice for multi-diciplinary team approach to collaborate with each role play I 20-30 minuters of each through visiting their rooms individually and a place of hospice palliative care unit of S hospital in P city. The subjects of it were the terminal patients those who admitted hospice palliative care unit and their familes. with agreement in hospice palliative care in their terminal disease. The characteristics of it were multi-disciplinary team approach, whole personal care, individual care and total care according to their needs in their condition. The contents of it were pain control, symptom control, counseling patient, counseling family, hair cutting, hair shampooing, bed bath, recreation, taking a walk, event of culture(screen, recital, festival of praises, exhibition and so on), pastoral counseling, ritual service in bed, praying, service in bed, sing a worship praise, listening to the music, sharing remembrance of life, individual visiting music service(sing and praying), meditation Bible, art therapies(dance and drawing), social worker's counselling, confessing and sharing love and thanksgiving. The experimental group subjects participated in Wholistic Hospice Nursing Program which takes 120 minutes per session, total 10 sessions(total 1,200 minutes) altogether. In conclusion, this Wholistic Hospice Nursing Intervention can be used actively for whole personal well-being of the patients in hospice palliative in hospice palliative care unit and also applied in hospice practice as an useful model of multi-disciplinary team approach by hospice professionals.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.1-15
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• 2005

The aim of this study was to compare medical cost of hospice care and that of conventional care during the last year of life, and identify factors that influenced the cost. From January to August 2003 592 terminal cancer patients receiving care from 5 hospice care units and 2 hospice care teams in general hospitals were enrolled to case group. Two hundreds and seventy two terminal cancer patients receiving conventional care from 7 general hospitals were enrolled to hospital-based control group, and 1,636 terminal cancer patients from 122 general hospitals located in same regions with the 7 hospitals were enrolled to community-based control. We used characteristics and medical cost from data of National Health Insurance Cooperation. Total medical cost per beneficiary in cases was about 10 millions won, 14.5 millions in hospital-based controls and 11.1 millions in community-based controls. The hospice care saved $45\%$ over the last year of life compared with hospital-based controls (p<0.0001). Saving of inpatient cost account for approximately $80\%$ of saving per beneficiary. Hospice care saved $29\%$ of medical cost per hospitalization day compared with hospital­based controls and $17\%$ compared with community-based controls (p<0.0001). Multiple regression analyses showed that hospice care significantly saved the medical cost. This study suggest that hospice care save medical cost compared with hospital-based control and community-based control. Most of saving of inpatient cost account for approximately $80\%$ of saving of medical cost.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.183-187
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• 2012

The importance of palliative care for terminal cancer patients has been emphasized globally. Korea has formulated and implemented its policy for cancer control as it drew up a 10-year plan for cancer patient care. We examined Korea's National Cancer Act and the second 10-year plan for cancer patient care, which are legal grounds for palliative care projects for terminal cancer patients, to check the current status of Korea's efforts to establish a hospice and palliative care system. Institutionalization of hospice and palliative care has been developed within a framework of the national cancer project. Efforts such as expansion of hospice units, experts training and quality improvement should continue after the reimbursement of hospice and palliative care begins in 2013.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.184-193
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• 2021

Purpose: This study attempted to develop clinical guidelines to help patients use hospice and palliative care (HPC) at an appropriate time after writing physician orders for life-sustaining treatment (POLST) by identifying the characteristics of HPC use of patients with terminal cancer. Methods: This retrospective study was conducted to understand the characteristics of HPC use of patients with terminal cancer through decision tree analysis. The participants were 394 terminal cancer patients who were hospitalized at a cancer-specialized hospital in Seoul, South Korea and wrote POLST from January 1, 2019 to March 31, 2021. Results: The predictive model for the characteristics of HPC use showed three main nodes (living together, pain control, and period to death after writing POLST). The decision tree analysis of HPC use by terminal cancer patients showed that the most likely group to use HPC use was terminal cancer patients who had a cohabitant, received pain control, and died 2 months or more after writing a POLST. The probability of HPC usage rate in this group was 87.5%. The next most likely group to use HPC had a cohabitant and received pain control; 64.8% of this group used HPC. Finally, 55.1% of participants who had a cohabitant used HPC, which was a significantly higher proportion than that of participants who did not have a cohabitant (1.7%). Conclusion: This study provides meaningful clinical evidence to help make decisions on HPC use more easily at an appropriate time.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.7-17
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• 2023

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze end-of-life care practices in lung disease patients with physician orders for life-sustaining treatment (POLSTs). Methods: We retrospectively analyzed data from medical records regarding the end-of-life care practices of POLST decisions for patients with lung disease hospitalized at a tertiary hospital in Seoul, South Korea. Data were collected from January 1 to June 30, 2021. Results: Of 300 total patients, 198 had lung cancer (66.0%) and 102 had non-malignant lung diseases (34.0%). A POLST was written for 187 patients (62.3%), and an advance directive was written for 20 patients (6.7%). Subsequent treatments were hemodialysis in 13 patients (4.3%), surgery in 3 patients (1.0%), and cardiopulmonary cerebral resuscitation in 1 patient (0.3%). Among cancer patients, chemotherapy was performed in 11 patients (3.7%), targeted therapy in 11 patients (3.7%), immunotherapy in 6 patients (2.0%), and radiation therapy in 13 patients (4.3%). Depending on the type of lung disease, types of treatment differed, including hemodialysis, ventilators, bilevel positive airway pressure, high-flow nasal cannulas, nebulizers, enteral nutrition, central line, inotropic agents, and opioids. Conclusion: Although the goals of hospice care are the same whether a patient has lung cancer or a non-malignant lung disease, because the characteristics of the respective diseases differ, end-of-life care practices and hospice approaches must be considered differently.