Role Of Nurse In Palliative Care For Patient With Disabilities

Abstract

The availability of nurses and their overall health expertise govern their position in palliative care. Acting as a coordinator and liaison between patient and family, other health professions, and different healthcare services is a prominent, but not always valued, role for nurses. The goal of this review is to create a detailed account of the district nurse's role in providing palliative care. Papers in English reporting on aspects of the district nurse role in palliative care provision published up to 2022 were included. We searched electronic databases (Ovid Medline, Cinnahl, British Nursing Index, Embase, PsycINFO, and EBM reviews), as well as citation tracking and grey literature. This synthesis contains little that sheds light on the outcomes of care or explicitly guides practice. District nurses clearly articulate what they believe is important, but research in this area is limited and requires a renaissance to examine what is important: specifically, what district nurses do in practice; what patients and family carers think about what they do and do not do; and how district nurses can improve care outcomes.