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Providing Palliative Care in Rural Nepal: Perceptions of Mid-Level Health Workers
INTRODUCTION: Nepal is beginning to develop palliative care services across the country. Most people live in rural areas, where the Mid-Level Health Workers (MHWs) are the major service providers. Their views on providing palliative care are most important in determining how the service is organized...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5915880/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29736116 http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/IJPC.IJPC_196_17 |
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author | Gongal, Rajesh N Upadhyay, Shambhu Kumar Baral, Kedar Prasad Watson, Max Kernohan, George W |
author_facet | Gongal, Rajesh N Upadhyay, Shambhu Kumar Baral, Kedar Prasad Watson, Max Kernohan, George W |
author_sort | Gongal, Rajesh N |
collection | PubMed |
description | INTRODUCTION: Nepal is beginning to develop palliative care services across the country. Most people live in rural areas, where the Mid-Level Health Workers (MHWs) are the major service providers. Their views on providing palliative care are most important in determining how the service is organized and developed. AIM: This study aims to ascertain the perceptions of MHWs about palliative care in their local community, to inform service development. METHODS: A qualitative descriptive design, using focus group discussions, was used to collect data from a rural district of Makwanpur, 1 of the 75 districts of Nepal. Twenty-eight MHWs participated in four focus group discussions. The data were analyzed using content analysis. RESULT: Four themes emerged from the discussion: (i) suffering of patients and families inflicted by life-threatening illness, (ii) helplessness and frustration felt when caring for such patients, (iii) sociocultural issues at the end of life, and (iv) improving care for patients with palliative care needs. CONCLUSION: MHWs practicing in rural areas reported the suffering of patients inflicted with life-limiting illness and their family due to poverty, poor access, lack of resources, social discrimination, and lack of knowledge and skills of the health workers. While there are clear frustrations with the limited resources, there is a willingness to learn among the health workers and provide care in the community. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5915880 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-59158802018-05-07 Providing Palliative Care in Rural Nepal: Perceptions of Mid-Level Health Workers Gongal, Rajesh N Upadhyay, Shambhu Kumar Baral, Kedar Prasad Watson, Max Kernohan, George W Indian J Palliat Care Original Article INTRODUCTION: Nepal is beginning to develop palliative care services across the country. Most people live in rural areas, where the Mid-Level Health Workers (MHWs) are the major service providers. Their views on providing palliative care are most important in determining how the service is organized and developed. AIM: This study aims to ascertain the perceptions of MHWs about palliative care in their local community, to inform service development. METHODS: A qualitative descriptive design, using focus group discussions, was used to collect data from a rural district of Makwanpur, 1 of the 75 districts of Nepal. Twenty-eight MHWs participated in four focus group discussions. The data were analyzed using content analysis. RESULT: Four themes emerged from the discussion: (i) suffering of patients and families inflicted by life-threatening illness, (ii) helplessness and frustration felt when caring for such patients, (iii) sociocultural issues at the end of life, and (iv) improving care for patients with palliative care needs. CONCLUSION: MHWs practicing in rural areas reported the suffering of patients inflicted with life-limiting illness and their family due to poverty, poor access, lack of resources, social discrimination, and lack of knowledge and skills of the health workers. While there are clear frustrations with the limited resources, there is a willingness to learn among the health workers and provide care in the community. Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd 2018 /pmc/articles/PMC5915880/ /pubmed/29736116 http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/IJPC.IJPC_196_17 Text en Copyright: © 2018 Indian Journal of Palliative Care http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0 This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms. |
spellingShingle | Original Article Gongal, Rajesh N Upadhyay, Shambhu Kumar Baral, Kedar Prasad Watson, Max Kernohan, George W Providing Palliative Care in Rural Nepal: Perceptions of Mid-Level Health Workers |
title | Providing Palliative Care in Rural Nepal: Perceptions of Mid-Level Health Workers |
title_full | Providing Palliative Care in Rural Nepal: Perceptions of Mid-Level Health Workers |
title_fullStr | Providing Palliative Care in Rural Nepal: Perceptions of Mid-Level Health Workers |
title_full_unstemmed | Providing Palliative Care in Rural Nepal: Perceptions of Mid-Level Health Workers |
title_short | Providing Palliative Care in Rural Nepal: Perceptions of Mid-Level Health Workers |
title_sort | providing palliative care in rural nepal: perceptions of mid-level health workers |
topic | Original Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5915880/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29736116 http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/IJPC.IJPC_196_17 |
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