Bereavement Services Research Articles

Bereavement Services for Families and Peers of Deceased Residents of Psychiatric Institutions

Families of patients who die while receiving care in an acute care setting face issues of loss and grief; other patients and staff members may also face these issues. Although informal bereavement services may exist in some settings, there often is no formally established bereavement service designed to assist surviving family members, patients, and staff members. Social work, with its concern for the social aspects of patients' lives, is the logical profession to provide leadership in establishing and providing formal bereavement assistance. The results of a literature search suggest that few such formalized services exist. A planned bereavement service may considerably lighten the burden for family survivors and for patients and staff, especially when the deceased has developed relationships within the acute care facility. An exemplar bereavement service is presented using data from the few existing or proposed efforts to formalize bereavement services in acute care settings.

Music Therapy:Variations on a Theme

Music therapists make significant contributions to the multidisciplinary hospice team in its efforts to provide holistic palliative care to terminally ill patients and family members and to promote quality of life. The role of a hospice music therapist is described, including providing direct patient music therapy service, training the hospice team in music therapy, developing and maintaining a music therapy resource centre, and offering bereavement services. A review of patient charts Provides information about patient age, sex, diagnosis, and source and reasons for referral.

Information exchange.

• I am working as an enrolled nurse on an intensive care unit. I plan to begin a follow-up bereavement service for patients' relatives.

The right organisation.

Re: Susan Dukes' 'Establishing a bereavement service' (Nursing Standard November 28 1990).

Establishing a bereavement service

Susan Duke looks at research into the effects of bereavement and examines the interventions necessary for establishing the most helpful support service. Current research is limited, she says, and suggests that bereavement programmes should see research as an important component of their function. With the right preparation, existing staff can provide support without the need for bereavement specialists.

What Information Should the Multiple Birth Family Receive Before, During and After the Birth?

Advances in the management of the multiple pregnancy and delivery must be accompanied by corresponding improvements in service access outside key centres and especially in the information families receive about what may happen during or after the pregnancy. A major review of birthing services in Victoria has focussed attention on four areas where the quality of information is often inadequate. 1) Prepregnancy and the standard of counselling about the incidence of multiples as a result of fertility drugs and in vitro fertilization procedures and about problems which may accompany a multiple birth. 2) Antenatal: At what stage of the pregnancy should parents be told of the multiple pregnancy and how should monitoring of the mother and procedures such as bedrest take into account what are often conflicting demands within the family? 3) Perinatal: Families are frequently illprepared for a cesarean delivery and for the procedures for premature multiples. The problem is often compounded by separation of the mother from one or both twins. While bereavement services are improving, much still needs to be learned about handling congenital abnormalities in one or more multiples. 4) Postnatal: Irrespective of the level of prenatal advice, families greatly underestimate the workload with multiples. The resulting stress contributes to the incidence of postnatal depression, child abuse and divorce now being reported from multiple birth families. Some suggestions are made from social psychology and genetic counselling about how families can best handle risk information to achieve the goal of neither under- nor overestimating the risks at these different stages of the multiple pregnancy.

Bereavement Services

Bereavement Services

Bereavement services: practice and problems.

Hospice bereavement services vary widely and are often loosely defined. This paper describes the results of a survey on the form and function of hospice bereavement services completed by NHO Provider Member hospices. It explores issues related to staffing, training, size, services provided, and service priorities. Additionally, data collection and research, referrals, funding, risk assessment, obstacles programs face and the limitations that are inherent in hospice structures are examined. These important elements are presented along with a discussion of critical issues and recommendations for future research and study.

Bereavement services

Bereavement services

Bridging the Bereavement Gap: A Manual for the Preparation and Programming of Hospice Bereavement Services. Donna O’Toole

Bridging the Bereavement Gap: A Manual for the Preparation and Programming of Hospice Bereavement Services. Donna O’Toole

A Comprehensive Bereavement Program

This case study illustrates how one woman was able to take advantage of a variety of hospice bereavement services. In addition to attending monthly social support group meetings and six therapeutic support group sessions, Lillian received 12 home visits or approximately 18 hours of individual support. Not all hospice survivors became so intensely involved in the follow-up services programs offered by Hilltop Hospice. During the five-year period, 1980-1984, approximately 80% of the hospice survivors, or 200 clients, received some form of direct bereavement services; most of the others were provided with supportive correspondence throughout their first year of bereavement. Although approximately 10% of the hospice survivors became involved in the social and the therapeutic support groups, in addition to receiving individual support, most survivors found the individual support services to be sufficient. However, in hospice programs where resources are limited and not all survivors can be assigned a volunteer, support groups can be designed to compensate for a lack of available volunteers. A comprehensive hospice bereavement program takes into account not only the varying resources of the hospice but the individual characteristics of survivors as well. Because clients' grief experiences differ, as well as their personalities, coping styles, and circumstances, a hospice should be prepared to offer a variety of bereavement services. In addition, surviving family members may be more likely to accept follow-up support from the hospice team if they can choose a particular service to meet their individual needs.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Book Review: “Bridging the Bereavement Gap: A Manual for the Preparation and Programming of Hospice Bereavement Services”

Book Review: “Bridging the Bereavement Gap: A Manual for the Preparation and Programming of Hospice Bereavement Services”

Hospice bereavement services: creating networks of support.

Hospice bereavement services: creating networks of support.

Learning about death: a project report from the Edinburgh University Medical School.

A report of a problem-based learning project on the ethics of terminal care, offered as one of the options available to first year MB ChB students in Edinburgh University Medical School. The project formed part of the 'clinical correlation course' in the new curriculum. Six students took part under the supervision of two clinical tutors and a moral philosopher. The course was case-based and practical with students being given the opportunity over a period of eight weeks to meet patients, relatives and hospital staff at a local geriatrics hospital and terminal care home. The main issue studied was the degree of choice available to patients electing to be treated at home, in hospital or in a hospice. Other issues included: pre-death, disposal of the dead, certification of death, communication with relatives and follow-up bereavement services.

Perinatal mortality: assisting parental affirmation.

The health professional's role does not cease with perinatal death, but shifts towards the prevention of postmortem psychiatric sequelae in the parents. A multidisciplinary bereavement service has found that an increased awareness of the final processes of "viewing" and "burial" diminishes the production of fearful speculations both by parents and staff, and allows them to cooperate more fully in dealing with the tragedy.