PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to compare home care nursing intervention activities analyzed by the Nursing Intervention Classification (NIC) system for hospice and general patients.
METHOD
For the descriptive survey study, data was collected by reviewing charts of 151 hospice patients and 421 general patients who registered in the department of home health care nursing at K Hospital.
RESULTS
According to the NIC system application, there were 2380 total nursing interventions used for the hospice patients and 8725 for the general home care patients. For both sets of patients (hospice vs. general), the most frequently used nursing intervention in level 1 was the Physiological: Complex domain (40.13 vs. 31.06 percent), followed by the Safety domain; in level 2, the Risk Management class (28.4 vs. 27.70 percent), followed by Tissue Perfusion Management; and in level 3, Vital Sign Monitoring (6.18 vs. 4.84 percent), followed by Health Screening.
CONCLUSION
The study showed that there was a lack of specialized hospice nursing interventions such as emotional, family and spiritual support, and care for dying hospice patients.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of depression, discomfort, spirituality, physical care, and opioid use on pain with terminally ill cancer patients residing in hospice units. The convenient sample of this study consisted of 41 terminally ill cancer patients at three hospice units in university affiliated hospitals. Patients were interviewed with structured questionnaires three times at predetermined intervals: admission to the hospice unit (Time 1), one week later (Time 2), and two weeks later (Time 3). The data was collected from January 1998 to January 1999 and was analyzed using ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient, and multivariate multiple regression. The results of this study were as follows: 1. The mean age of the participants was approximately 55 years old. In terms of diagnosis, lung cancer showed the highest frequency (19.5%), followed by stomach cancer and rectal cancer (17.1%). The motive of seeking hospice unit admission was control (72. 2%), followed by spiritual care (50%), and symptom relief (38.9%). 2. Regarding the type of pain felt, the highest pain frequency the participants experienced was deep pain (55%), followed by multiple pain (25%), intestinal pain (10%), then superficial (5%) and neurogenic pain (5%). For the level of pain measured by VAS, there was no significant difference among the three time points; Time 1 (5.04 +/-2.21), Time 2 (4.82+/-2.58) and Time 3(4.73+/-2.51). 3. There was significant change seen in spirituality and physical care in each time interval. Namely, the longer the length of admission at the hospice unit, the higher the importance of spirituality (p=0.0001) and the more the physical care the participants received (p=0.01). The opioid use at the three time points showed the following frequencies : Time 1 (75.6%), Time 2 (85.4%) and Time 3 (75.6%). 4. Regarding factors influencing pain, the pain level was significantly affected by the depression level (p <0.01) and the opioid use (p <0.1). These results were the most significant at the two time points (Time 1 and Time 2). At Time 3 (two weeks later), the pain level was significantly affected by the depression level (p <0.05) and the amount of physical care the participants received (p <0.1). In conclusion, the terminally ill cancer patients had moderate pain, were generally depressed, and were treated with opioid analgesics. As approaching death, the patients received more physical care due to increased physical symptoms experienced and they had a higher perception of the importance of spirituality. Thus, health care professionals need to provide continuous care for each of them to die comfortably physically, psycho- logically, and spiritually.

The study was aimed at developing an independent hospice center model that would be best suited for Korea based on a literature review and the current status of local and international hospices. For the study, five local and six international hospice organizations were surveyed. Components of the hospice center model include philosophy, purpose, resources (workers, facilities, and equipment), allocation of resources, management, financial support and hospice team service. The following is a summary of the developed model: Philosophies for the hospice center were set as follows: based on the dignity of human life and humanism, help patients spend the rest of their days in a meaningful way and accept life positively. On the staff side, to pursue a team-oriented holistic approach to improve comfort and quality of life for terminally ill persons and their families. The hospice center should have 20 beds with single, two, and four bed rooms. The center should employ, either on a part-time or full-time basis, a center director, nurses, doctors, chaplains, social workers, pharmacists, dieticians, therapists, and volunteers. In addition, it will need an administrative staff, facility managers and nurses aides. The hospice should also be equipped with facilities for patients, their families, and team members, furnished with equipment and goods at the same level of a hospital. For the organizational structure, the center is represented by a center director who reports to a board and an advisory committee. Also, the center director administers a steering committee and five departments, namely, Administration, Nursing Service, Social Welfare, Religious Services, and Medical Service. Furthermore, the center should be able to utilize a direct and support delivery systems. The direct delivery system allows the hospice center to receive requests from, or transfer patients to, hospitals, clinics, other hospice organizations (by type), public health centers, religious organizations, social welfare organizations, patients, and their guardians. On the other hand, the support delivery system provides a link to outside facilities of various medical suppliers. In terms of management, details were made with regards to personnel management, records, infection control, safety, supplies and quality management. For financial support, some form of medical insurance coverage for hospice services, ways to promote a donation system and fund raising were examined. Hospice team service to be provided by the hospice center was categorized into assessment, physical care, emotional care, spiritual care, bereavement service, medication, education and demonstrations, medical supplies rental, request service, volunteer service, and respite service. Based on the results, the study has drawn up the following suggestions: 1. The proposed model for a hospice center as presented in the study needs to be tested with a pilot project. 2. Studies on criteria for legal approval and license for a hospice center need to be conducted to develop policies. 3. Studies on developing a hospice charge system and hospice standards that meet local conditions in Korea need to be conducted.