Abstract:
It is argued that notwithstanding the life
expectation of patients in palliative care, they
still grapple with a wide spectrum of uncertainties
for which they require answers to bring relief
from anxiety. Nurses, appreciative of their role
to relief anxiety, are often the only persons with
whom patients have regular contact that can assist
them in finding answers. Although nursing staff
are well trained in palliative care, they often
experience frustration when they fail to access
the right information that will provide their
patients’ information needs. Despite evidence of
numerous successful information provision
interventions by nursing staff, the literature
continues to report unmet information needs and
frustrations of patients and their families. As a
solution, this paper offers an exploratory
conceptualisation of nurses and palliative care
which can serve as a framework for further
investigations towards enhancing nursing staff’s
information intermediary capacity.
