A Comparison between Home Care Nursing Interventions for Hospice and General Patients

Yong, Jin Sun; Ro, You Ja; Han, Sung Suk; Kim, Myung Ja

Abstract

PURPOSE
The purpose of the study was to compare home care nursing intervention activities analyzed by the Nursing Intervention Classification (NIC) system for hospice and general patients. METHOD: For the descriptive survey study, data was collected by reviewing charts of 151 hospice patients and 421 general patients who registered in the department of home health care nursing at K Hospital.
RESULTS
According to the NIC system application, there were 2380 total nursing interventions used for the hospice patients and 8725 for the general home care patients. For both sets of patients (hospice vs. general), the most frequently used nursing intervention in level 1 was the Physiological: Complex domain (40.13 vs. 31.06 percent), followed by the Safety domain; in level 2, the Risk Management class (28.4 vs. 27.70 percent), followed by Tissue Perfusion Management; and in level 3, Vital Sign Monitoring (6.18 vs. 4.84 percent), followed by Health Screening.
CONCLUSION
The study showed that there was a lack of specialized hospice nursing interventions such as emotional, family and spiritual support, and care for dying hospice patients.