Introduction regarding the 1^st International Conference in Palliative Care and Family Health Nursing (1^st ICPC&FHN), Faculty of Nursing, Thammasat University, Thailand, June 26-27, 2023.

Friday 7 April 2023

     Palliative care is care focused on improving the quality of life for people with serious illness and their families facing psychical, psycho-social, and spiritual problems associated with diseases, which compromise the continuity of life, and curative treatments for the relief of suffering. It has been recognized that humanized, integral, and individual care is necessary not only for the patient but also for their family. Along with healthcare professional development, there is a growing recognition that family plays a critical role in a patient’s life and well-being in terms of palliative care. As a basic unit of every society, the family is complex, varied, dynamic, and adaptive. However, nursing has strong historical ties with the medical model traditionally focused on the individual rather than the family. At best, families have been observed and commonly considered a nuisance in healthcare settings—an obstacle to overcome to provide care to the individual. A palliative approach is a core of nursing care building from an integral to the patient and their families through actions developed by a multi-professional team to maintain the life-threatening illness.

     Family nursing is the provision of care involving the nursing process to families and family members in health and illness situations. Family nursing should be health-oriented, incorporating holistic, systematic, and interactional perspectives drawing on and bringing family strengths in to view. In order to provide optimal palliative care, nurses need to involve the family in all aspects of care along with an interprofessional team. When people live longer with chronic diseases, nurses increasingly require more knowledge and skills in palliative care as they spend the most time with patients and families compared to other healthcare professionals. Therefore, due to the aging of the world's population and the rising burden of noncommunicable and communicable diseases, the need for palliative care is growing worldwide.

     Based on Thammasat University's guiding philosophy, the University for the People, the Faculty of Nursing at Thammasat University in Thailand, and 21 national and international co-hosts will hold the 1st International Conference in Palliative Care and Family Health Nursing (1st ICPC&FHN) on June 26-27, 2023, at Amari Don Muang Airport Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. This first international conference is organized to give voice and future directions as well as to assure the success of continued practices in palliative care and family health nursing.

More information can be checked from the conference website:
1st International Conference in Palliative Care and Family Health Nursing 2023