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Abstract
The World Health Organization plan for a Decade of Healthy Ageing 2020–2030 has established some priorities in the field of palliative and end-of-life care. It states that “people require non-discriminatory access to good-quality palliative and end-of-life care” and recommends the “implementation of strategies for the provision of information, training, respite and support for informal caregivers”. The priorities described are in line with the home care services that National Tumor Assistance (ANT) Foundation has been providing in Italy. This 5-years investigation was designed to measure caregivers’ satisfaction and determine what types of support services are associated with greater satisfaction. 5.441 family caregivers filled out autonomously a 6-item questionnaire at the end of home care assistance, focusing on the level of satisfaction with the social and health services received. The overall data indicate a high satisfaction rate for the home care assistance received. In particular, participants rate positively the assistance provided by healthcare professionals (physicians, nurses and psychologists). The most appreciated aspects of assistance are those ensuring a global management of patients and their families, whereas an area of deficiency emerged was the continuity of care, suggesting the importance to implement the networks between the health care facilities and home care services. The present investigation constitutes a mean to highlight the aspects associated with greater satisfaction and the ones perceived as less satisfactory by caregivers. Moreover, this research constitutes a crucial instrument to improve home care assistance provided by ANT ensuring the best quality of life for both patients and their families.
Highlights
The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined Healthy Ageing as “the process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables well-being in older age” [1,2,3]
The results show that most family caregivers are satisfied with the services provided by ANT Foundation, there are still areas of deficiency, in the continuity of care
We strongly believe that the exchange of experiences and approaches in palliative and end-of-life care is a critical step for reducing gaps in active and healthy ageing worldwide, with a life-course approach
Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined Healthy Ageing as “the process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables well-being in older age” [1,2,3]. This definition implies a life-course approach: actions to improve healthy ageing should be taken at all ages, with particular attention to the needs of people at critical life stages. Regarding the concrete actions to reach the objectives of the plan, the WHO has established some main priorities Among these, it emerges that “people require non-discriminatory access to good-quality palliative and end-of-life care”. Informal caregivers are a vulnerable group: considerable research on caregiving portrays it as a stressful and burdensome experience and many studies show that family carers experience severe strain, with serious negative consequences on their physical and mental health [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]
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