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Meanings of eating deficiencies for people admitted to palliative home care

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 October 2014

Viktoria Wallin ,
Ida Carlander ,
P.-O. Sandman  and
Cecilia Håkanson
Viktoria Wallin*
Affiliation:
Department of Neurobiology, Care Science and Society, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden Palliative Research Centre, Ersta Sköndal University College and Ersta Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden
Ida Carlander
Affiliation:
Palliative Research Centre, Ersta Sköndal University College and Ersta Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
P.-O. Sandman
Affiliation:
Department of Neurobiology, Care Science and Society, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
Cecilia Håkanson
Affiliation:
Department of Neurobiology, Care Science and Society, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden Palliative Research Centre, Ersta Sköndal University College and Ersta Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Viktoria Wallin, Palliative Research Centre, Ersta Sköndal University College and Ersta Hospital, P.O. Box 111 89, SE-100 61 Stockholm, Sweden. E-Mail: viktoria.wallin@esh.se
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Abstract

Objective:

Food and eating are embedded in people's everyday social lives: at home with family members and as part of social interactions. For people with progressive life-limiting conditions, however, eating is often obstructed. The objective of the present study was to explore the meanings of living with eating deficiencies at the end of life among people admitted to specialist palliative home care.

Method:

This qualitative inductive study employed an interpretive descriptive approach. A dozen persons, with various diagnoses and eating deficiencies, admitted to two specialist palliative home care units, participated. Data were collected through individual repeated interviews. Data collection and analysis were guided by the interpretive description method.

Results:

The results reveal that eating deficiencies among people with progressive life-limiting conditions are existentially loaded markers of impending death. Finding ways to overcome declined food intake and hampered eating enabled our participants to feel able to influence their own well-being and remain hopeful. The results also showed that the eating deficiencies influenced participants' relationships and social interactions in ways that hampered their possibilities of sharing valuable moments together with friends and family members during the final period of life.

Significance of Results:

Efforts to minimize the distress that people experience in relation to the challenges they face with eating deficiencies are important for well-being at the end of life. Person-centered approaches to acknowledge and support individuals' own ways of experiencing and dealing with their eating deficiencies are recommended that include a multidimensional perspective on food and eating.

Keywords

Eating deficienciesFood intakeExistentialInterpretive descriptionPalliative care
Type
Original Articles
Information
Palliative & Supportive Care , Volume 13 , Issue 5 , October 2015 , pp. 1231 - 1239
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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