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Quality of life issues identified by palliative care clients using two tools
Sue Lewis
Clinical Nurse Consultant, Palliative Care, Royal District Nursing Service South Australia Inc, SA
Marie Bridge
Clinical Nurse Consultant, Palliative Care, Royal District Nursing Service South Australia Inc, SA
Di Roughton
Clinical Nurse Consultant, Palliative Care, Royal District Nursing Service South Australia Inc, SA
Janine Barelds
Clinical Nurse, Palliative Care, Royal District Nursing Service South Australia Inc, SA
Sava Brenton
Clinical Nurse, Palliative Care, Royal District Nursing Service South Australia Inc, SA
Sherree Cotter
Clinical Nurse, Palliative Care, Royal District Nursing Service South Australia Inc, SA
Mary-Lou Hagebols
Clinical Nurse, Palliative Care, Royal District Nursing Service South Australia Inc, SA
Kirsty Woolman
Clinical Nurse, Palliative Care, Royal District Nursing Service South Australia Inc, SA
Merilyn Annells
Professor of Community Nursing, La Trobe University, VIC; Research Consultant to Royal District Nursing Service South Australia Inc.
Tina Koch
Adjunct Professor of Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Flinders University; Director, Research Unit, Royal District Nursing Service, SA
Abstract
Reported are issues impacting upon the Quality of Life (QoL) of 59 palliative care clients within a district nursing service. These issues reinforce the emerging conceptualisation of QoL as being subjective and multidimensional. The issues were identified during a trial of two QoL assessment and measurement tools, the Client Generated Index (CGI) and the McGill Quality of Life (MQOL). In this era of considerable concern about QoL for the terminally ill, the article's intent is to present the QoL issues identified, the grades of impact and priority for improvement of the issues according to the clients, and to discuss these aspects. This information can inform the assessment of palliative care clients (the CGI tool was found ideal for such an assessment), and may also inform further research on the QoL of palliative care clients.
Keywords
quality of life, palliative care, quality of life assessment, quality of life measurement
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