Individuals and Families

  • Grief Coach, a Text-Based Grief Support Intervention: Acceptability Among Hospice Family Members

    Grief Coach is a text-based program designed to provide bereavement care and increase grief literacy through twice-weekly text support, education, tips and reminders to people who are grieving. Levesque and colleagues (2023) conducted an evaluation of the Grief Coach program to learn whether, why, and how bereaved program subscribers from Continue reading →

  • Reflective Journaling as Preparation for Spiritual Care of Patients

    Spirituality is a critical component of patient and family care at the end of life, yet some health care providers do not feel prepared to deliver spiritual care. To prepare nursing and medical students taking care of dying patients and their families, the Catalyzing Relationships at the End of Life Continue reading →

  • Implementing Dignity Therapy Service into an Acute Cancer Care Setting

    Dignity therapy is a short-term psychotherapy used with patients towards the end of life to address existential distress. While the literature describes positive benefits of dignity therapy for patients and family, few studies have assessed organizational feasibility, including time to deliver the intervention and cost. Kelly, 2023 conducted a study Continue reading →

  • Hospice Social Work Preferences for the Delivery of Facebook Support Groups

    The physical, emotional, and mental health toll on family caregivers – non-paid relatives or friends who takes the responsibility to care for a hospice patient – is well documented. Emotional and social support and information on how to care for their patients are often requested by caregivers. Oliver and colleagues Continue reading →

  • Nutrition in Palliative Care

    Nutritional support is critically important to alleviate diet related issues and should be an integral component of palliative care. Holdoway 2022, considers the challenges that patients and their families experience and highlights practical tools and frameworks to support nutritional care in practice. Read more…

  • Assessing the Impact of a Palliative Care Health Navigator for Patients Experiencing Homelessness

    People experiencing homelessness are at increased risk for illness and mortality and face significant systemic barriers to receiving good palliative care at the end of life. This study by Robinson and colleagues (2022) sought to quantify the impact of a health navigator on the delivery of palliative care to patients Continue reading →

  • Facilitating Equitable Access to Hospice Care in Socially Deprived Areas

    Access to care can be influenced by many factors including one’s socioeconomic status. French and colleagues (2022) conducted a study to explore the relationship between social deprivation and access to hospice care in the United Kingdom. This study suggests that aspects related to service organization and delivery influenced how hospices Continue reading →

  • Role and Deployment of Volunteers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

    Volunteers are important members of the care team for clients receiving palliative care. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, data indicated a large decline in the number of palliative care volunteers. Walshe and colleagues (2022) conducted a survey to understand the roles and deployment of volunteers in hospice palliative care services as these Continue reading →

  • Innovative Models for Equitable Palliative Care

    In recent years addressing social determinants of health has been increasingly prioritized to improve and reduce longstanding disparities in health care. Over the life course, those experiencing socioeconomic deprivation are disproportionately subjected to higher likelihood of poor overall health status, reduced access to palliative and health services, and poor quality Continue reading →

  • Interventions for Grieving and Bereaved Informal Caregivers

    Informal caregivers are integral members of the hospice palliative care interdisciplinary team and quality care includes providing effective grief and bereavement supports to these caregivers.  Thrower and team (2022) conducted a scoping review was to identify current interventions which address the grief and bereavement experiences of informal caregivers of geriatric Continue reading →