Objective: to determine the prevalence of nursing problems in terminally ill patients who require home care by a support team and in their caregivers, and who belong to Area 8 of the Community of Madrid.
Material and method: cross-sectional descriptive study by means of the review of the clinical histories of all patients who received home care by the Home Care Support Team (HCST) of Area 8 of Madrid between the months of january and may of 2008. M. Gordon’s Functional Health Patterns were used for the nursing assessment and the 2005-2006 2nd NANDA Taxonomy was used for the diagnosis of nursing problems. The primary variable was the presence of nursing diagnoses in the first visit.
Results: 84 patients, 78 cancer patients and 6 non-cancer patients. 278 labels were identified: 21,5% in the nutritional pattern; 14,3% in the activity-exercise pattern; 13,6% in the self-perception and self-concept pattern; 12,2% in the cognitive-perceptual pattern; 9,3% in the elimination pattern; 8,9% in the role-relationships pattern; 7,1% in the adaptation and tolerance to stress pattern; 5% in the rest-sleep pattern and 0,3% in the values and beliefs pattern. The most prevalent problems in patients were acute pain (23,8%), constipation (16,6%), and deteriorated sleep pattern (15,4%); and in caregivers, compromised family coping (14,2%), followed by the risk of fatigue while exercising the caregiver role (13,1%).
Conclusions: the care problems encountered mirror those described in the literature and are a result of the specific needs presented by the patient’s illness and the life stage the patient is in. In caregivers, problems originate from coping and possible excess burden versus claudication. The identification of care problems helps to unify intervention criteria, improves the quality and continuity of care and facilitates the family’s capacity to cope with the disease.