This project explored the impact of group-targeted messages and individually tailored support on end-of-life planning by family caregivers of elders receiving long-term care (LTC) services. Five booklets have been developed:
- Advance Care Planning: Making Choices Known
- Planning Ahead: Funeral and Memorial Services
- Preparing to Say Good-bye: Care for the Dying
- When Death Occurs – What to Do When a Loved One Dies
- Help for the Bereaved: Surviving and Adapting to Change
The Complete Life Series is now available online:
Booklet 1: Advance Care Planning – Making Choices Known
Booklet 2: Planning Ahead – Funeral and Memorial Services
Booklet 3: Preparing to Say Good-Bye – Care for the Dying
Booklet 4: When Death Occurs – What to Do When a Loved One Dies
Booklet 5: Help for the Bereaved – The Healing Journey
Advanced Directives Form
Because research shows that print messages alone have limited success in changing end-of-life planning behaviors, caregivers also are offered a choice of individually tailored supplemental support-group training, telephone counseling, or assistance from service providers.
Partners in this research include:
- Castle Medical Center Caregivers Group
- Department of Health, Case Management Services, Kona
- Honolulu Gerontology Program
- Honolulu Meals on Wheels
- Hospice of Kona
- Kokua Kalihi Valley Elderly Services
- Kona Adult Day Center
- Kona Community Hospital
- Life Care Center at Kona
- Maluhia Nursing Home
- Nursing Home Without Walls
- Project Dana
- St. Francis Dialysis Center, West Hawaiʻi
- West Hawaii Home Health Services, Inc.
The project will: identify the stage of caregivers of elders receiving LTC; provide 600 caregivers with appropriate message booklets and their choice of supplemental support; track changes in end-of-life knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors (KAB); document culturally linked barriers to end-of-life planning and strategies to address them; and compare costs of each approach. Expected KAB outcomes include: increased knowledge of end-of-life issues and resources; improved attitudes toward hospice, planning for death, and dying at home; and completion and communication of advance directives (AD) and other end-of-life planning documents.