%0 Journal Article
%T The perspectives of bereaved family carers on dying at home: the study protocol of ¡®unpacking the home: family carers¡¯ reflections on dying at home
%A Sheila Payne
%A Sarah Brearley
%A Christine Milligan
%A David Seamark
%A Carol Thomas
%A Xu Wang
%A Susan Blake
%A Mary Turner
%J BMC Palliative Care
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1472-684x-11-23
%X A cross-sectional qualitative study has been designed to achieve the study aims. In-depth interviews will be conducted in the north and south of England with 50 bereaved family carers to elicit their accounts of witnessing the dying in the home of an older person (50+ years). All interviews will be subjected to thematic analysis, and narrative analysis will be undertaken on a subset of 30 interview transcripts. A final phase of integration and policy analysis will be conducted towards the end of the study. User involvement is integral to this study, with service users actively engaged at every stage.This study will seek to take a qualitative approach by explicitly recognising that family carers are central to the experience of dying at home for older people, and they have needs that may be amenable to support and anticipatory planning. The strengths of this study, which include its interdisciplinary and participatory approach, and in-depth data collection and analysis methods, will be explored. The limitations and challenges of this research will also be considered. This study seeks to make recommendations that will ensure that family carers receive appropriate and adequate support in caring for their loved ones at the end of life.Recent end of life care policy in the United Kingdom emphasises the importance of patient choice regarding place of care, and in particular promotes dying at home [1]. This policy is predicated on the assumption that there are family carers able and willing to provide care for the dying person (we use the National Institute for Clinical Excellence¡¯s [2] broad definition of family carers as people with a close social and emotional bond, not just those related by kinship or marriage). Within Europe there are estimated to be 100 million family carers whose contribution to care often exceeds the financial expenditures of their countries on formal nursing services, although it is difficult to estimate exactly how many are engaged in caring for
%K Informal caregivers
%K Palliative care
%K Home
%K Qualitative methods
%K Interviews
%K End of life
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-684X/11/23