Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Aug 7;19(1):120.
doi: 10.1186/s12904-020-00623-z.

Sense of support within the family: a cross-sectional study of family members in palliative home care

Anna Milberg  1   2 , Maria Liljeroos  3   4   5 , Rakel Wåhlberg  2 , Barbro Krevers  1
Affiliations

Sense of support within the family: a cross-sectional study of family members in palliative home care

Anna Milberg et al. BMC Palliat Care. .

Abstract

Background: Despite evidence that family members' support to each other can be of importance to its members, there are limited studies of factors related to family members' sense of such support during palliative care.

Aim: Based on the family systems approach, we evaluated which factors were associated with family members' sense of support within their closest family in a palliative home care context and developed a model that predicts such sense of support.

Design: A cross-sectional design was used. We interviewed 209 adult family members (69% of eligible) of adult patients with expected short survival receiving palliative home care.

Methods: Generalised linear models were used to evaluate individual factors related to family members' sense of support within their closest family during palliative care. The Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) was applied in the model-building analyses.

Results: Nineteen variables were identified that were significantly associated with the family members' sense of support within the closest family. Model building selected six variables for predicting this sense of support (decreasing Wald values): family member perceiving support from other more distant family members; feeling secure with the provided palliative home care; possibility of respite if family member needed a break; family member living alone; being a child of the patient (inverse relationship); perceiving that the patient was supported by other family members.

Conclusions: Our findings support clinical application of the Family Systems Theory in the context of palliative care. The factors identified may be of value in assisting practitioners in detecting and treating family members sensing a low level of support within the closest family.

Keywords: Family members; Family system theory; Palliative home care; Support.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
a-b. A theoretical conceptual description of the hypothesised relationships formulated before the study (Fig. 1a) and a schematic representation of the selected variables in the final model predicting family member’s sense of support within the closest family (Fig. 1b). It was hypothesised that the family member’s sense of support within the closest family (dependent variable; dark grey box) would be associated with five domains (in white boxes), each domain representing a subsystem or suprasystem (in light grey boxes)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Overview of study enrolment
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Krikorian A, Limonero JT, Mate J. Suffering and distress at the end-of-life. Psychooncology. 2012;21(8):799–808. - PubMed
    1. Mehta A, Cohen SR, Chan LS. Palliative care: a need for a family systems approach. Palliat Support Care. 2009;7(2):235–243. - PubMed
    1. Wright LM, Leahey M. Nurses and families: A guide to family assessment and intervention. 5th ed. Brantford: W. Ross MacDonald School Resource Services Library; 2009.
    1. Carolan CM, Smith A, Forbat L. Conceptualising psychological distress in families in palliative care: findings from a systematic review. Palliat Med. 2015;29(7):605–632. - PubMed
    1. Milberg A, et al. What is a 'secure base' when death is approaching? A study applying attachment theory to adult patients' and family members' experiences of palliative home care. Psychooncology. 2012;21(8):886–895. - PubMed