Acupuncture in hospice settings: A qualitative exploration of patients’ experiences

Abstract

Whilst acupuncture has the potential to impact on many aspects of health and well-being, including end-of-life care, there is little research regarding patients' experiences of its effects within the context of palliative care in hospice settings. The aim of this study was to address this gap, by exploring patients' experiences of acupuncture within this setting. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of eighteen patients who had received acupuncture as part of hospice care. Transcription of data, with thematic analysis, identified two overarching themes: (1) participant perceptions of the effects of acupuncture including pain control, improved physical and emotional health, spiritual well-being and awareness of health as a holistic phenomenon; and (2) factors which participants believed enabled acupuncture to have these effects including the quality of the practitioner relationship, engagement of participants in the process of their treatment and prior expectations that acupuncture could work. Acupuncture was found to be a highly acceptable, accessible and popular treatment with positive holistic effects reported across the domains of physical, mental and spiritual health and no serious adverse effects. By enabling awareness of the holistic nature of health and well-being, acupuncture was experienced as having the potential to contribute to a better death, an emergent theory that needs testing in further studies. In the meanwhile, the results of this study offer encouragement to hospices currently providing or considering investing in acupuncture provision.

The RIGHT Extension Statement for Traditional Chinese Medicine: Development, Recommendations, and Explanation

“…Acupuncture is an important component of TCM interventions. Acupuncture has been increasingly used as an integrative or complementary therapy and it is well-tolerated with little risk of serious adverse effects [ [31] , [32] , [33] , [34] ]. For item 10-1 (S5-1in the checklist of the RIGHT-TCM), it is recommended to describe the acupuncture points, major points, matching points, and their addition and subtraction information.…”

Acupuncture as a Treatment Within Integrative Health for Palliative Care: A Brief Narrative Review of Evidence and Recommendations

“…103 In a qualitative study of patient experiences receiving acupuncture in a hospice setting, McPhail et al interviewed 20 patients and found generally consistent experiences that acupuncture not only reduced many physical symptoms but that it also improved emotional and psychological health and, for some, enhanced spiritual wellbeing. 104 In conditions like cancer, various symptoms often occur together, leading to the recognition of ''symptom clusters.'' 105 Since acupuncture is a technique that has shown evidence across a number of symptoms in cancer care, it is also recommended as a therapy because it can address a number of symptoms in the symptom clusters.…”

The Introspective Patient Experience of Mistletoe Therapy in Cancer: A Qualitative Study

“…A handful of qualitative studies on cancer patients can be found in the field of CM therapies showing that other complementary therapeutic approaches are also experienced on different levels of human existence. [70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81] Different responses of patients were reported on various levels of experience depending on the therapeutic approach taken. These studies use their individual coding frames and definitions of the respective levels and we use their terminology in the following discussion.…”