Supporting Family Caregivers of Palliative Patients at Home: the Carer Support Needs Assessment Intervention

"Home care nurses in this comparator group will provide care as per usual to their patients and family caregivers. The family is seen as the unit of care but no formal assessment of the caregiver will be done."

"The intervention will be the routine use of the Carer Support Needs Assessment Tool (CSNAT) in the practice of home care nurses (once every 4 weeks with each family caregiver) to document, monitor and address family caregiver support needs.~The completed CSNAT tool will be kept in the patient chart and will be integrated into the care provided by the nurse.~Update - December 22, 2016 - In some offices only, the CSNAT will be administered by a separate study nurse. Findings will be communicated to the home care nurse to inform the documenting, monitoring and addressing of family caregiver support needs."