Hospital-based bereavement care provision: A cross-sectional survey with health professionals.
Palliat Med
; 34(4): 547-552, 2020 04.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-31868555
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
An in-hospital death is a profound experience for those left behind and has been associated with family members' psychological morbidity. Supporting bereaved family members is an essential part of end-of-life care and includes attentive presence, information-giving, and emotional and practical support. The actual adoption of hospital-based bereavement care, however, remains little understood.AIM:
To investigate hospital-based bereavement care provision and associated barriers.DESIGN:
Cross-sectional survey using an online questionnaire. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS:
Health professionals (n = 196) from two University-affiliated acute and psychiatric hospitals in Switzerland.RESULTS:
The most frequent bereavement services (⩾40%) were viewing the deceased, giving information on available support, and making referrals; the most often named barriers were lack of time and organizational support. Acute care health professionals faced statistically significant more structural barriers (55.1% vs 21.4% lack of time, 47.8% vs 25.9% lack of organizational support) and felt insufficiently trained (38.4% vs 20.7%) compared to mental health professionals (p ⩽ 0.05). Nurses provided more immediate services compared to physicians, such as viewing the deceased (71.3% vs 49.0%) and sending sympathy cards (37.4% vs 16.3%) (p ⩽ 0.01). In contrast, physicians screened more often for complex bereavement disorders (10.2% vs 2.6%) and appraised bereavement care as beyond their role (26.5% vs 7.8%) (p ⩽ 0.05).CONCLUSION:
The study indicates that many barriers to bereavement care exist in hospitals. More research is required to better understand enabling and limiting factors to bereavement care provision. A guideline-driven approach to hospital-based bereavement care that defines best practice and required organizational support seems necessary to ensure needs-based bereavement care.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Luto
/
Cuidados Paliativos na Terminalidade da Vida
/
Pessoal de Saúde
Tipo de estudo:
Guideline
/
Observational_studies
/
Prevalence_studies
/
Qualitative_research
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limite:
Humans
País como assunto:
Europa
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2020
Tipo de documento:
Article