Tam MLB and Wong KYF
Tung Wah College, Hong Kong
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Adv Practice Nurs
Introduction: Palliative care was increasing adopted for irreversible chronic disease in the recent decade. A nurse-led
transitional palliative care model was adopted in the process of care.
Objectives: This randomized clinical trial examines the difference of intervention effect between the intervention and control
groups.
Method: Purposeful criterion sampling was adopted. There were 76 ESRF patients (intervention: 38 and control: 38) recruited
from a general regional hospital in Hong Kong. Demographic data such as gender, age, education level, accommodation,
cohabitants, occupation and comorbidity illness were collected. Primary outcome variables include non-scheduled readmission
rate, length of stay in the hospital and utilization of accident and emergency department. Secondary outcomes variables
including health-related quality of life with subscale of symptoms problem list, effects of kidney disease, burden of kidney
disease, physical and mental composite score, physical symptom manifestation, palliative performance scale, hospital anxiety
and depression, satisfaction with care and Zarit caregiver burden. Data collection was carried out from August 2014 to October
2017 at the baseline 1, 3, 6 and 12 months after recruitment. Repeated measures of analysis of variance were adopted for
comparing the group difference over five time-points of two independent random samples.
Results: The mean age of the participants was 80.8±10.8 years old with comparable demographic characteristic in both groups.
There were significant between group differences with intervention group presented better in both primary and secondary
outcomes.
Conclusion: The findings evidenced the positive effects of the nurse-led transitional palliative care model on patient with
irreversible chronic renal disease. In addition, caregivers of the intervention group presented less burden in caring the patient
that echoed the implications of appropriate and timely supports to the patient and their caregivers.
Tam MLB has worked as Nurse Consultant in Renal Nursing in Hong Kong. She was the Senior Lecturer at the Tung Wah College. She worked as the Adjunct Assistant Professor of The Chinese University, Hong Kong and Honorable Consultant of Lingnan Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, China.
E-mail: bonnietam@twc.edu.hk
Journal of Advanced Practices in Nursing received 410 citations as per Google Scholar report