Heart failure (HF) afflicts 6.5 million Americans with devastating consequences to patients and their family caregivers especially during the end of life. Families are rarely prepared for HF’s devastating consequences.
This NIH R15 research project addresses the NIH Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA) priorities. The primary aim of this nurse-led multidisciplinary research project is to test the family home palliative care (FamPALcare) nursing care intervention with patients and family members managing home supportive care for end-stage HF in rural WV using a small low-risk randomized controlled trial (RCT).
The FamPALcare intervention assists family members to gain skills and access resources to manage home HF symptoms at the end-of-life. Specifically, FamPALcare provides guidance to the family members in managing the frequent distressful end-of-life (EOL) HF symptoms and engage them in culturally sensitive discussions about selecting HF specific treatment options according to their EOL preferences. i
The outcomes of this R15 will result in new knowledge on culturally sensitive coaching techniques for home palliative and end-of-life care in rural setting. The long-term impact will be the strengthening of the School of Nursing research environment, engagement of undergraduate and graduate students in clinical research, and collection of data for a subsequent large pragmatic trial of FamPALcare intervention.