Effectiveness of home-based palliative care programmes for older people and their family caregivers in Thailand

Background: People in Thailand receiving palliative care at home can have complex needs and this means that the family caregiver can have a high burden of care. Aim: To assess the impact of a nursing care activities for a home-based palliative care programme (NHBPC) on the care burden among family caregivers and the care quality in older people at the palliative care stage. Methods: This quasi-experimental repeated measure study was used to investigate the effects of the nursing care activities for a NHBPC programme. Results: The mean caregiving burden and care quality scores in the experimental and control groups at post-test and 2-weeks follow-up showed significant differences (p<.05). In addition, improvement was not seen in the control group. Conclusion: The NHBPC programme significantly improved caregiving burden and quality of care in Thai older people and their family caregiver. This confirms that the NHBPC programme plays a crucial role in helping them to improve quality of life.