The Significance of the Patient/Family as a Unit of Care in Working with Terminally Ill Patients

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Abstract
This study investigates the concept of patient/family as a unit of care insofar as it affects the treatment of dying patients. One hundred social workers in three institutional settings were interviewed to determine if the patient/family concept is perceived to be more prevalent in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, or hospices. The family’s allowable involvement in care was found to differ in these settings as were some aspects of health care provided by professionals to the family. The concept of patient/family as a unit of care was a salient one, and the concept was correlated across the three settings with job satisfaction and other characteristics of an optimal model of care.

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