Nurses' perspectives on the discharge of cancer patients with palliative care needs from a gastroenterology ward

Background: People with cancer usually like to spend as much time as possible at home rather than in the hospital. Nurses have a pivotal role when patients are discharged to a unit in hospital or from hospital to the community health-care system. Aim: To explore how frontline surgical nurses assess patients with gastrointestinal cancer receiving palliative care and the implications of their assessment and competency for the patients' discharge destinations. Methods: A descriptive exploratory approach was used involving focus group interviews with a purposive sample of ten nurses from an inpatient gastroenterology surgical ward at a university hospital in Norway. Transcriptions of the interviews were analysed using Kvale and Brinkman's thematic approach. Results: Two overall themes emerged that had implications for the nurses' recommendations for optimal patient follow-up care after discharge: ‘the complexity of and fluctuations in the patients' health status' and ‘considering the competency of the nurses ...