Natl Assoc Hosp, Home

Background: Current end-of-life care policy and guidance recognises the important contribution of family carers, recommending that their needs should be assessed to support them in their caring role. How regular carer assessment is to be achieved is unclear, particularly because there is no evidence-based tool for directly assessing carers’ support needs that is suitable for use in end-of-life home care practice.

Context. Family carers need to be supported in their central role of caring for patients at the end of life, but brief practical tools to assess their support needs have been missing. To address this gap, we developed a brief evidence-based Carer Support Needs Assessment Tool (CSNAT) suitable for everyday practice. Objectives. To assess face, content, and criterion validity of the CSNAT and measure sensitivity to change over time. Methods. Participants were 225 adult carers of patients from six U. K. Hospice Home Care services.