Abstract
The current paper presents a summary of a 12-year body of research on final conversations, which will be useful for healthcare providers who work with patients and family nearing the end-of-life, as well as for patients and their family members. Final conversations encompass any and all conversations that occur between individuals with a terminal diagnosis and their family members (all participants are aware that their loved one is in the midst of the death journey). Final conversations take the family member’s perspective and highlights what are their memorable messages with the terminally ill loved one. In this paper the authors highlight the message themes present at the end-of-life for both adults and children, the functions each message theme serves for family members, and lastly, the communicative challenges of final conversations. Additionally, the authors discuss the current nature and future of final conversations research, with special attention paid to practical implications for healthcare providers, patients, and family members; also, scholarly challenges and future research endeavors are explored.
Highlights
Close relationships are critical to the end-of-life (EOL) journey, both for terminally ill people and their family members [1]
The current manuscript seeks to summarize this body of research, while addressing three primary insights gleaned from this work: practical implications for healthcare providers, patients, and families; scholarly challenges; and, future research directions
A sampling of the questions of the interviews that led to the most substantive findings include: “Would you share with me your recollection of your final conversation or conversations with your loved one?”; “What was the most meaningful conversation that you had with this person?”; “Why was it the most meaningful to you?”; “What sorts of nonverbal experiences stick out in your mind from this time period?”; and, “What did each of these nonverbal experiences mean to you?” The language of the questions was appropriately adapted according to the age of the participants
Summary
Close relationships are critical to the end-of-life (EOL) journey, both for terminally ill people and their family members [1]. It is the communication between these two parties at the end-of-life that has been shown to have a profound impact on the EOL journey [1,2]. Final conversations research has focused on the themes, functions and impacts of communication at the end-of-life from the perspective of the family members, close friends, and other individuals that are allowed within the inner sanctum of a terminally ill person’s life, which until recently, was an understudied perspective in the EOL literature [2]. The current manuscript seeks to summarize this body of research, while addressing three primary insights gleaned from this work: practical implications for healthcare providers, patients, and families; scholarly challenges; and, future research directions
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