Educational needs of home caregivers of terminally ill patients: literature review.

Hospice care continues to be a rapidly growing philosophy of care at the end of life. One of the fundamental principles of hospice is the role of a primary caregiver to provide for the needs of the terminally ill loved one. Typically, a spouse, adult child, sibling, close friend, or significant other fills this role. Usually, the caregiver has no formal training in caregiving and is learning all aspects of providing for all the needs of the patient. This is an awesome responsibility and quite overwhelming for most caregivers. A research synthesis was completed to assess the educational needs of caregivers of terminally ill patients. The computerized literature search of several databases found very few studies on the educational needs of caregivers. The few studies that have been done have used both quantitative and qualitative approaches, using a variety of assessment tools, looking at several different populations, over varied time periods. In spite of the variety of methods and populations studied, all the studies came to similar conclusions. The needs of the studied caregivers fall into three main categories: needing information on meeting the physical needs of the patients, community resources, and the patient's illness. The findings provide a basis for further research to build a comprehensive educational program that maximizes the role of the caregivers of terminally ill patients.