Family needs and supportive nursing behaviors during terminal cancer: a review

The limited nursing research on families during the terminal phase of a relative's cancer has focused on family needs and supportiveness of nursing behaviors. In both hospital and homecare settings, families regarded information about their relatives' conditions and interventions directed at their relatives' comfort as most supportive. Regarded as least supportive were interventions that encouraged families to ventilate their own emotions. Being physically near their dying relatives was very important to families whose relatives were hospitalized. Strengths of this research are the consistency in findings and the rich descriptive data. Limitations include lack of control for several important variables and lack of sufficient attention to theory development. Theoretical ideas from the literature on attachment, loss, stress, and coping are suggested as tentative explanations for the pattern of descriptive findings. Future research should address family-generated examples of emotional support and nurses' teaching roles.