Context: For the first time in India, a Pain and Palliative Care policy to guide the community-based home care initiatives was declared by the Government of Kerala state. In Kerala, majority of the panchayats (local self-governments) are now conducting home-based palliative care as part of primary health care. National focus domain areas in palliative care research are structure and process, the physical aspects, and also the social aspects of care.
Aims: The study was conducted to assess the patient's status and the services provided by palliative home care.
Settings and design: The descriptive study was conducted at Mavoor panchayat-Kozhikode district of Kerala, India by collecting information from the case records, nurses diary notes of all enrolled patients.
Materials and methods: Collecting information from the case records, nurses diary notes of all enrolled patients.
Statistical analysis: The data were entered using Microsoft excel for Windows XP and analyzed using SPSS 16.0 (Statistical Package for Social Sciences; SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).
Results: Totally, 104 patients were enrolled. Diagnosis wise major category was degenerative diseases. There were 27% persons suffering from cerebrovascular accidents, 15.3% with malignancies, 8.7% with coronary artery disease, 5.8% with complications of diabetes, and 8.7% were with fracture of bones. The major complaints were weakness (41.3%), tiredness (31.7%), and pain (27%). Twenty-five percent persons complained of urinary incontinence, 12.5% complained of ulcer, 10.6% of edema, and 9.6% of mental/emotional agony. The activity of daily living status was as follows. Twenty-five percent subjects were completely bed ridden. 5.8% were feeding through Ryles tube, 16.3% had urinary incontinence, 9.6% were having no bowel control.
Conclusions: The service could address most of the medical, psychosocial, and supportive needs of the patients and reduce their pain and symptoms. The interface between institutional-based care and home care needs more exploration and prospective studies.
Keywords: Activity of daily living; Community nurse; Home-based palliative care; Primary care; Quality of life.