This 2 year project intends to explore the ways in which hospices are responding to and caring for substance abusing AIDS patients. These persons pose a particular challenge to these services which have traditionally cared for terminally ill cancer patients. Hospice, through both the cost-effectiveness of their programs and their human response to the total needs of the patient could play a prominent role in providing care to the SAAIDS population. However, the patients are generally younger and have different personality, behavioral, and socio-demographic characteristics than the typical hospice patient. The large proportion of minority persons within this group of AIDS patients suggest that hospices must also be sensitive to cultural and ethnic beliefs and behaviors. To date, it is not known to what extent hospices are serving these persons or their policies, programs, or problems in dealing with them. Data which does exist describe isolated services in large urban areas which may not be applicable to other programs. With the assistance of an advisory board composed of experts in the hospice field, a mail survey will be sent to the 1,700 hospices in the United States. Two mailings with a telephone follow-up will be utilized in order to obtain approximately a 70 percent response rate. Site visits will be made to 5 programs in varying regions of the country with different types of programs, selected on the basis of their effectiveness in reaching SAAIDS patients. Descriptive statistics with bivariate measures of association and contingency and correllational analysis will be used to examine the data for relationships. Multivariate techniques will be utilized to explain current practices of treatment and to determine which factors contribute to the decision to serve SAAIDS patients and how hospices serving them differ from those that do not. The findings should contribute to the development of guidelines for hospices and the development of model programs.
| Cox, C (1999) Hospice care for injection drug using AIDS patients. Hosp J 14:13-24 |
