Nurses’ decisions about cancer patients end of life skin care study

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Nurses’ decision-making about the end of life skin care of patients with advanced cancer: A vignette based study of a prototype decision making algorithm

• IRAS ID

  253097

• Contact name

  Ray Samuriwo

• Contact email

  samuriwor@cardiff.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Cardiff University

• Duration of Study in the UK

  0 years, 11 months, 31 days

• Research summary

  The problem
  Many recent studies and reports have highlighted shortcomings in the skin care that nurses deliver to patients (with cancer and other conditions) at the EoL. Research also indicates that nurses find it challenging to make decisions about this aspect of patient care because of concerns about adding to the patient’s distress, upsetting the patient and their loved ones.. This study seeks to establish the relative importance of different factors and cues in nurses’ EoL skin care related decision making for advanced cancer patients and to refine an EoL skin care prototype decision making tool (PDMT) that was developed in a previous study.

  Aims
  To establish:
  1. the relative importance of different factors and cues in the PDMT
  2. the face validity, content validity and utility of the PDMT

  Study design
  Qualitative and quantitative data will be gathered through a rating exercise and semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of 20-30 palliative, oncology and tissue viability nurses from different hospitals. The interviews will be arranged at convenient times, digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Qualitative data will be subject to thematic analysis and the quantitative data gathered will be subject to descriptive statistics in order to further develop a revised decision making tool (RDMT) for advanced cancer patients’ EoL skin care. It is envisaged that by establishing the face validity, content validity and utility of the PDMT this study will inform the development of a RDMT that can be used by nurses to improve EoL skin care.

  Study outcomes and impact
  This study is expected to have wider significance for nursing especially in relation to the care of patients at the EoL. It is hoped that this study will underpin improvements in the EoL skin care for people with cancer and the bereavement outcomes for their loved ones.

• REC name

  N/A

• REC reference

  N/A