Perspectives of telemedicine-based services among family caregivers of patients with end-of-life cancer: a qualitative study in mainland China

BACKGROUND: Despite being driven by a strong sense of duty and familial obligation, providing care for patients nearing the end of life poses challenges for family caregivers.

Telemedicine has rapidly gained traction as a transformative approach to healthcare delivery, offering an array of benefits that could be particularly valuable in end-of-life care.

However, research on the perspectives of telemedicine-based services among family caregivers of patients with end-of-life cancer is limited.

Therefore, this study aims to explore the perspectives and preferences of telemedicine-based services among family caregivers of patients with end-of-life cancer and provide a framework for developing and executing a tailored telemedicine-based end-of-life care program that addresses the unique needs of family caregivers in mainland China.

METHOD: A descriptive phenomenological approach was used.

Family caregivers were selected using purposive sampling at a tertiary cancer hospital.

One-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participants from November to December 2022.

Colaizz’s method was used to analyze the interviews.

RESULTS: Fourteen participants participated in interviews.

Three themes and ten subthemes were identified: motivation to receive telemedicine services (relief from the burden of home care; access to professional health care services), supportive care needs for telemedicine services (support for symptom management; negative emotional adjustment; death education; daily life care guidance), and functional expectations of telemedicine service platforms (ease of use; real-time online guidance and response; personalized automatic reminder; targeted matching push of health knowledge).

CONCLUSION: Family caregivers expressed interest in telemedicine-based services and identified various care needs before receiving telemedicine services.

The findings of this study can help policymakers and healthcare providers develop more effective and culturally appropriate telemedicine-based service programs that can better support family caregivers of end-of-life cancer patients.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12904-024-01347-0.