Care for the caregiver : addressing the issues of palliative care providers

• Main Author: McVicar, Jonathan Duncan
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/10027

The purpose of this study was to explore the experience of health care professionals working in a palliative care unit, who participated in a brief, client centered counselling intervention. Eight health care professionals, representing both the nursing and allied workers, received between six to twenty individual counselling sessions with a counselling psychologist. This study utilized a phenomenologically based, qualitative approach to investigate participants' experience of the counselling sessions and their perspectives on its impact in their work and personal lives over a six month period. Participants' interpretations were grouped into nine themes: Expectations of counselling, if and how expectations were met, areas of stress in the workplace, enabling factors for participants to attend counselling, main issue addressed in counselling, changes in personal or home life, changes in work environment and interactions with colleagues, changes in job satisfaction and performance, and additional comments regarding the counselling experience. Results indicated that most participants reported positive changes occurring intrapersonally, interpersonally, and in their levels of job satisfaction and job performance. Since this approach appears to merit further attention, implications for practice and further research are discussed. === Education, Faculty of === Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of === Graduate