title: Nurse-family interaction in Malaysian palliative care settings: a focused literature review.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Palliative care in Malaysia developed in the 1990s to improve the quality of life of people with advanced cancer. Like many other countries, Malaysia faces its own challenges in providing palliative care to patients and their families. In Malaysian culture, families play a significant part in providing care to the dying. Connecting with families in patient care is therefore important. This paper reports a focused literature review evaluating studies on the care of the families of terminally ill people in palliative care environments in Malaysia.
  
  
  METHODS
  The search engines CINAHL, Medline, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar were searched for literature published from January 2000 to April 2010 relating to family care in palliative care environments. Due to a paucity of research on family care in Malaysia, the search was broadened to include relevant studies on family care internationally.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Four themes were identified: delivering palliative care in Malaysia, communicating with families, crossing cultural boundaries, and the caring experience of nurses.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The studies indicate the importance of the nurse-family interaction in providing optimal and culturally appropriate palliative care. This paper emphasizes the need for research into the nurse's role in family care and for developing a theory appropriate to the Malaysian culture and other countries with cultural diversity.
authors: School of Nursing and Midwifery, Monash University, Australia. pathmavathy@optusnet.com.au
authors: Pathma
authors: P
authors: Namasivayam
authors: Margaret
authors: M
authors: O Connor
authors: Tony
authors: T
authors: Barnett
authors: Susan
authors: S
authors: Lee
authors: Louise
authors: L
authors: Peters
mesh_terms: D054521:Cultural Competency; D004645:Empathy; D006801:Humans; D008296:Malaysia; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000451:nursing; D009732:Nursing Care; D010166:Palliative Care; D011368:Professional-Family Relations