Renata Kudukytė Gasperė, Kęstutis Štaras
Abstract
Aging population in Lithuania determinates thedemand for integrated services, oriented in solving problems ofsenior, disable citizens and growing needs of home nursing. Atthe present time, Lithuania are only at the beginning of analysisfor demand of integrated health care as well as nursing andpsychosocial services for long care patients. Although more andmore attention are paid for management of providing integratednursing and psychosocial help for chronically ill patients at home,the real patient care burden still lies with patients family. The lackof attention for the needs of patient’s relatives in health care andpsychosocial services was noticed.Public institution Centro poliklinika is the almost the onlyinstitution in Vilnius, providing integrated home nursing,palliative medicine and social services. This article assess theintegrated nursing and psychosocial services demands for Centropoliklinika chronically ill patients and their relatives. The surveywas conducted in 2013, by implementing public health program“Ensuring of safe environment at home for patients and social,psychological and spiritual help for their relatives”. 431 chronicsevere disease patients with a specific set of permanent nursingor palliative care needs, as well as 220 of their family memberswere interviewed.It was found that the chronically ill, long term home nursedpatients need an integrated comprehensive support and careprovided by a multidisciplinary team of specialists, using a specificpatient case management principles in organizing and providingdiverse on the individual patient and his family members‘ needsorientedservices. Psychosocial services are not organized for thepatient‘s relatives in Lithuania, however, study has showed thatpatients‘ family members who are constantly taking care of them,particularly needs recreational services allowing them to rest fromthe day to day care of the patient.
Keyword(s): integrated care, home care, social services, psychosocial services, demand of integrated services
DOI: 10.5200/sm-hs.2015.002
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