Understanding the home hospice experience of Puerto Rican caregivers

Understanding the home hospice experience of Puerto Rican caregivers
Annals of Palliative Medicine; Taeyoung Park, Veerawat Phongtankuel, Marcela D Blinka, Milagros Silva, Dulce M Cruz-Oliver; 8/24
Hospice use among Hispanic Medicare beneficiaries has declined in the last few years, and Hispanic caregivers have reported insufficient support around the emotional and spiritual aspects of care. Caregivers found managing patients' loss of appetite, pain, anxiety, and confusion to be challenging. They identified family-centered values and religious support as culturally important, which manifested as the need for frequent communication from hospice providers and increased support and education at the end-of-life. Culturally tailored interventions that focus on managing symptoms, tailoring care to support family-centered values, integrating religious officials representative of the patient's beliefs into the hospice team, and communicating effectively with providers may reduce the burden experienced by PR caregivers in home hospice and improve outcomes for patients and caregivers.