Effects of death education combined with humanistic nursing on mental state of family members of terminal cancer patients

Abstract

Objective To explore the effects of death education combined with humanistic nursing on mental state and quality of life of family members of terminal cancer patients so as to provide clinical data and basis for spreading hospitalpice. Methods From September 2015 to January 2018, we selected 110 patients with stage Ⅲ or Ⅳ cancer and 110 their immediate family members (selecting one family member of one patient) of Oncology Department at the First People's Hospital of Shangqiu as subjects by convenience sampling. All of the subjects were divided into control group (n=49) and intervention group (n=61) with the method of the random number table. Family members of control group received routine nursing. On the basis of that in control group, family members of intervention group were treated with death education combined with humanistic nursing for two months. All of family members were evaluated with the Profile of Mood States (POMS) , Relatives Stress Scale (RSS) and WHO Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) to compare the negative mental state, mental stress and quality of life of patients' family members before and after intervention. Results Before intervention, there were no statistical differences in the scores of POMS, RSS and WHOQOL-BREF of family members between two groups (P>0.05) . After intervention, the scores of six sub-scales of POMS, dimension scores and total score of RSS and scores of four dimension of WHOQOL-BREF all improved compared with those before intervention with statistical differences (P<0.05) . After intervention, the scores of tension-anxiety (TA) , depression-dejection (DD) , anger-hostility (AH) , fatigue-inertia (FI) and confusion-bewilderment (CB) of POMS, psychological distress, life disruption and negative emotions and the total score of RSS in intervention group were lower than those in control group; the scores of four dimensions (physiology, psychology, social relations and environment) in WHOQOL-BREF of intervention group were higher than those of control group with statistical differences (P<0.05) . Conclusions Death education combined with humanistic nursing can relieve the negative mental state and mental stress of family members of terminal cancer patients, which helps to improving family members' quality of life. Key words: Neoplasms; Quality of life; Death education; Humanistic nursing; Patients; Family; Psychology