Edmonds, P.

This paper reports on data from the Regional Study of Care for the Dying, conducted in 1990, and compares symptoms, care and service utilization for patients with chronic lung diseases (CLD) and lung cancer (LC) in the final 12 months of life. Post-bereavement structured interviews were conducted with informal carers of 449 LC patients and 87 CLD patients. The LC patients were significantly younger than those with CLD (P = 0.001) and these respondents were more likely to have been a spouse (P = 0.034).

Background No previous research exists specifically exploring the needs of those people severely affected by multiple sclerosis (MS).

Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with people identified by the referring health or social care professional as being severely affected by their MS and informal carers, in order to explore their perceptions of their illness and care. The data were analysed for themes using the constant comparative approach.