Quality of terminal care: salient indicators identified by families

Abstract

This study was the second phase of a three phase project designed to develop and test a tool to measure family satisfaction with terminal care. The first phase was a qualitative study that identified indicators families of terminally ill cancer patients perceived to be important to patient and family care. In Phase II a Q-Sort was administered to 210 family members from three different care settings to obtain relative rankings of the items identified in Phase I. Items most and least important to patient care and family care were identified for the total sample and for each care setting. Patient comfort, the need for information regarding the patient's illness, and the availability of a hospital bed were ranked as most important by the total sample. The extent of agreement among family members and within care settings was estimated using Kendall's coefficient of concordance. Demographic variables that were significantly related to item rankings are reported. Phase III will use the most salient items identified in Phase II to develop and test a scale to measure family satisfaction with terminal care.