Terminal cancer
Conditions
Interventions
Four one-hour home visits by district nurses who are specialized in palliative care / oncology over a period of six weeks, in order to support informal caregivers in handling problems they are faced w
Sponsors
Comprehensive Cancer Centre Limburg
Maastricht University / Institute for Bioethics
Eligibility
Inclusion criteria
Inclusion criteria: Informal caregivers can enter the study if they take care of a patient who has been diagnosed with cancer and has a life expectancy of less than four months. Next to these criteria, the patient has to spend his last months largely at home and has to be at least 18 years old. Informal caregivers can also take part in the study if they are not involved in the care for the patient at the moment, but are expected to be in the near future.
Exclusion criteria
Exclusion criteria: Informal caregivers who take care of a cancer patient with a life expectancy of less than two months, because this interferes with the post-measurement eight weeks after inclusion.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| 1. Satisfaction of the informal caregivers with the care provided to them and the patient they take care of. Measured at baseline and eight weeks later, with the Maastricht measuring-Instrument Satisfaction Terminal Care (in Dutch: Maastrichts meetInstrument Tevredenheid Terminale Zorg - MITTZ); 2. Burden perceived by the informal caregivers. Measured at baseline and eight weeks later, with the Caregiver Reaction Assessment-Dutch (CRA-D); 3. Health of the informal caregivers, measured at baseline and eight weeks later, with the MOS 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36). | — |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| The use of health care facilities by both the informal caregivers and the patients, measured over a period of eight weeks, by means of a care diary. | — |
Contacts
Public ContactM. Dijk, van
Comprehensive Cancer Center Limburg, P.O.Box 2208
Outcome results
None listed