People who need end-of-life care
Which individuals, families, and communities need end-of-life nursing care? Nurses face death and take
care of people who are affected by death regardless of the areas and settings where they work. While most
of the Japanese people express their preference of dying at home,17,18 more than 80% of death in Japan
occurred in hospitals in 2009.19 Because patients’ need for end-of-life care is often not addressed until death
becomes inevitable and imminent in acute-care hospitals, end-of-life care in hospital settings tends to be