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Nursing Education 2018
Journal of Nursing and Health Studies
ISSN: 2574-2825
Page 47
April 23-25, 2018
Rome, Italy
27
th
Edition of World Congress on
Nursing Education &
Research
Introduction:
Patients in a permanent vegetative state are
living human beings, thus providing dignified and humanized
care for them is very important. The mean survival predicted for
these patients is 2-5 years, but there have been reported some
patients with survivals of more than 10 years. It is worth noting
that, because of their special self-care state, these patients need
continual medical and social interventions and should also receive
extensive care related to keeping their airways clear, immunity,
liquid and electrolyte balance, nutrition, skin and corneal integrity,
defecation and urination, giving them sensory stimulation, etc.
On the other hand, the mentioned care should be provided by
professionals, but in many countries such as Iran, because of the
prolonged care period of these patients, they are discharged after
their situation gets stabilized, and then they are cared for by family
caregivers at home. So, continued education for family caregivers
of these patients is very important but is unfortunately neglected
because although home care is a very important part of the health
system, it has not been adequately implemented or has been mis-
implemented in the primary health care of Iran. Therefore, the
present study was conducted to explain the process of vegetative
patients’ care performed at home by home caregivers, one of the
dimensions of this process being their educational needs and how
to receive them.
Materials & Methods:
The present qualitative study was conducted
from 2013 to 2015 in some provinces of Iran. Purposive sampling
was used and 22 informants, including 17 family caregivers and
5 professional caregivers and hospital nurses, participated in
this study. Ethical considerations were respected in the sampling
process. Unstructured face-to-face interviews, observation, and
field notes were used for data gathering. Data collection continued
until data saturation was achieved and major themes became
apparent. Content analysis was performed using the Lundman
and Graneheim approach and the constant comparative technique.
Guba and Lincoln’s criteria were followed to ensure rigor in this
qualitative study.
Findings:
As a result of data analysis, the main theme of seeking
opening education emerged, and its’ three sub-themes included:
the necessity of education, avid seeking of education and effective
education. These three sub-themes had 8 subcategories. These
subcategories revealed that incompletedischargeeducationand the
patients’ need to receive multiple cares result in much fear in family
caregivers. In response to this scary lack of knowledge, caregivers
sought information from all sources, including professional and
unprofessional sources. However, the result of the efforts of family
caregivers in searching for information was accessing effective
education that resulted in providing effective care for their patients.
Conclusion:
Patients in a vegetative state need a variety of
professional care and lack of optimized education to the family
caregivers and families results in much psychological stress for
them. So creating a process and a system for continuous and
desirable education in the health system is very necessary. To
achieve this goal, the proper intervention is to add home care to
Iran’s health system.
Biography
Fateme Goudarzi is an Assistant Professor in Nursing, Medical-Surgical
Department, School of Nursing, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences,
Khorramabad, Iran, She did her BSc in Nursing at Shahid Beheshti University
of Medical Sciences, MSC in Medical-Surgical Nursing, at Tehran University
of Medical Sciences and PhD in Nursing, Ahvaz jundishapur University of
Medical Sciences.
fatemegoudarzi75@yahoo.comEducating family caregivers of vegetative patients as
a very important necessity: a qualitative study
Fateme Goudarzi
1
, Heidarali Abedi
2
, Kourosh Zarea
3
, Fazlollah Ahmadi
4
and
Hossein Goudarzi
5,6
1
Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorramabad, Iran
2
Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran
3
Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Iran
4
Tarbiat Modares University, Iran
5
Borujerd Health Network – LUMS, Iran
6
Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Iran
Fateme Goudarzi et al., J Nurs Health Stud 2018, Volume 3
DOI: 10.21767/2574-2825-C1-002