Social worker-led holistic interdisciplinary community-based end-of-life care: Development, implementation and evaluation.

Abstract

Funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, the Jockey Club Community End-of-Life Care Project developed, implemented and evaluated three different models of community end-of-life care between 2016 and 2018. These three models were led by social workers and supported the psychosocial needs of patients with advanced illnesses as well as their families. This symposium will describe three different models of community EoLC programmes by non-profit social service agencies in Hong Kong as well as the evaluation of these models. All organizations collaborated with hospital partners to provide community-based EoLC to families with older people with advanced illnesses, with unique foci. While emphasizing the partnerships with the health care system, these social care units strengthen psychosocial care in the community. Models include the volunteer-based model, assisted family-care model and patient empowerment model. A standardized comprehensive outcome and impact evaluation were carried out. Adopting mixed methods, assessments with older adults, family caregivers, and volunteers are implemented through pre-post-followup questionnaires as well as post-service qualitative interviews. Changes in symptoms, mental health, caregiving burden, quality of life, general health and complicated grief are assessed. Based on the experiences in the first three years, an integrated model was introduced for further testing. The symposium will also include the sharing of this new integrated model.