Supportive nursing care for family caregivers – A retrospective nursing file study

Background: Family caregivers enable patients to be cared for and die at home whereas nurses aim to support the family caregivers of these patients. Information on how this support is provided and how this is documented in nursing files is largely lacking. Objectives: To gain insight in nurses' reports on the supportive care for family caregivers. Methods: We studied 59 nursing files of adult patients who had received hospice home care in the Netherlands from 4 home care organisations between August 2017 and October 2018. Information on supportive nursing care for family caregivers was retrieved from the nursing files based on a prestructured form. Data was quantitatively and qualitatively analysed. Findings: 54 out of 59 nursing files contained information about family caregivers; 40 files contained nursing diagnoses on family caregivers and in 26 files nursing interventions on supportive care for family caregivers were reported. Only half of the nursing files contained information about supportive nursing care for family caregivers. Conclusions: Complete nursing documentation of provided care to family caregivers is needed. • Nurses should pay attention to the family caregivers' needs and experiences in palliative care. • Nursing documentation on supporting family caregivers is found to be incomplete. • Reported interventions to support family caregivers in palliative care were scarce. • Nurses may take into account two roles in the care for family caregivers: co-client and co-worker. • Assessment tools and proper documentation may help nurses to support family caregivers.