Palliative Care Victoria (PCV) CEO Violet Platt is undertaking her PhD and would like to hear of your experiences in providing palliative care to those who may have been living in transient short-term accommodation, a hostel or short-term homeless accommodation, a boarding house, overcrowded housing, couch surfing or rough sleeping.
This project aims to understand the experiences of palliative care health professionals who care for people experiencing homelessness who also have a life limiting condition. The project is hoping to improve the end-of-life care experiences for people experiencing homelessness by exploring the experiences of workers in the social and palliative care services, who traditionally have limited opportunities to work together. Alongside this project, the researchers will be interviewing social care workers for their experiences. It is hoped that by analysing both perspectives, future practices can be developed that will support collaborations between the social and palliative care workers, to improve care of people experiencing homelessness at the end of life; and improve the experiences of the respective workers.
All interviews will be independently conducted online by a researcher from the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia. Neither PCV or Violet will know of your participation or identity; your interview responses will be anonymised.
We spoke to Violet about her PhD and why she selected this topic:
“People who experience homelessness live an average of 30 years less than the general population, they suffer from poor health and are deprived of many basic human and social rights. When I reflect on patients I have cared for over the years, it is often those who experienced homelessness that made me question the care we delivered. A review of the published literature highlighted the lack of research and the many questions we need to answer for one of our most marginalised populations.”
Palliative Care NSW is pleased to see this important topic the subject of this recently approved PhD. Our recent scoping studies on Homelessness and Palliative Care in NSW highlighted the barriers preventing those experiencing homelessness from accessing quality palliative care, as well as how health workers provide this care. This PhD will ensure this important topic has further in-depth investigations with research findings published and shared to inform future care needs.
If you would like to learn more about the requirements of participating in a 30-45 minute interview, please contact Peter Palamara (Research Assistant) email p.palamara@ecu.edu.au
or phone 0412 228 510 to arrange for a Participant Information Letter to be forwarded to you.
This study has been approved by Human Research Ethics Committee of Edith Cowan University [# 2023-04474-PLATT]. If you have concerns or complaints about the proposed study you can contact the Research Officer at the Human Research Ethics Committee of Edith Cowan University at research.ethics@ecu.edu.au
or telephone (08) 6304 2170.