Palliative care within secure forensic environments

Ethics of Finitude: Nursing and the Palliative Approach in Geriatric and Forensic Psychiatry

There is a called-for shift to an upstream provision of palliative care as an overall care approach within a health equity perspective. Our research explored how nurses in psychiatry engage with aging patients and mortality to discern enactment of ethical dimensions of care. Drawing from tenets of interpretative phenomenological analysis, forensic and geriatric psychiatry registered nurses working at a mental health facility in eastern Ontario completed interviews for analysis. Nurses engaged with mortality through a process of recognition and through the affirmation of their values. The affirmed values are aligned with the palliative care approach and within an ethics of finitude lens in that their enactment is partly premised on the recognition of patients’ accumulated losses related to human facticities (social, temporal, mortal). This research underscores preliminary insights on a process identifying care practices aligned with the palliative approach and possibilities for expanding upon an ethics of finitude lens.

Forensic nursing and the palliative approach to care: an empirical nursing ethics analysis

BACKGROUND

A movement is underway to promote a palliative approach to care in all contexts where people age and live with life-limiting conditions, including psychiatric settings. Forensic psychiatry nursing-a subfield of mental health nursing- focuses on individuals who are in conflict with the criminal justice system. We know little about the values of nurses working in forensic psychiatry, and how these values might influence a palliative approach to care for frail and aging patients.

METHOD

Interviews with four nurses working on one of two forensic units of a university-affiliated mental health hospital in an urban area of eastern Canada.

FINDINGS

Three specific values were found to guide forensic nurses in their care of aging patients that are commensurate with a palliative approach: hope, inclusivity, and quality of life.

CONCLUSION

When we started this project, we wondered whether the culture of forensic nursing practice was antithetical to the values of a palliative approach. Instead, we found several parallels between forensic nurses' moral identities and palliative philosophy. These findings have implications for how we think about the palliative approach in contexts not typically associated with palliative care, but in which patients will increasingly age and die.

The challenge of providing palliative care to terminally ill prison inmates in the UK

Terminally ill prison inmates have a right to all aspects of health care including palliative care provision. However, there are numerous difficulties in providing palliative care to high-security prisoners in the UK. Local community hospices may be reluctant to admit terminally ill prisoners and therefore initiatives must be established to provide appropriate palliative care within the prison itself. Dying prisoners need companionship and to be shown respect and compassion to avoid feelings of loneliness and hopelessness. Inmate volunteers can provide an invaluable source of support and friendship for the terminally ill prisoner, helping to improve quality of life.