Hospice care for an AIDS patient and his family

This article describes the emotional reactions, fear of contamination, and pressure to disclose HIV status of a patient who was recently diagnosed with AIDS, and his family. When the patient's condition deteriorated, his family and medical team faced ethical dilemmas about whether to disclose his condition to others, and the direction of his treatment. The authors and medical team applied the principles of hospice care. During each stage, the first author collected data by means of physical assessment, interview, participant observation, family meetings and team meetings, and provided a clear evaluation of the patient's clinical situation and disease prognosis. The first author applied the principles of hospice care and family-centered nursing care to enable the patient and his family to obtain physical comfort, to reduce the patient's fear of death, to enable him to enjoy the love of his whole family, and obtain his wife's forgiveness. After the patient's death, the first author called the family members and they came back to remember him in front of his room. The article shows that hospice care is crucial to AIDS patients and their families.