gms | German Medical Science

Background and Purpose: The number of palliative care patients and the importance of palliative care is increasing steadily. Due to that a wide range of questions in this complex field comes up. Restrictions in mobility are an emerging dominant phenomenon in nursing because it influences every activity of the daily life. The multidimensional mobility should be more focused. But so far, there are not any scientific evidence based findings, how the palliative care patients values their mobility and which needs they have in this regard. The aims are to give an insight into emotional world of palliative care patients and to give a base for professional discussions and research concerning mobility.

Methods: Qualitative Face-to-Face-Interviews were made with the methods of Witzel. Palliative care patients, who were supervised by a hospice association, were consulted by the researcher about their mobility in 2016. The complete transcripts were analyzed by using Mayring’s qualitative content analysis. For that inductive and deductive categories were produced.

Results: Many of the participants nearly equalized mobility with independence. Therefore, a great significance of social, physical and psychological-cognitive mobility can be detected. That is why the conservation of resources were particularly important. However, sometimes it was improvement.

Conclusions: Depending on the individual aims and form on the day, activating care can be useful in many cases. The multidimensionality of mobility, the great importance of this for the palliative care patients and their needs should be included in the individual palliative care planning and should find more attention.