While telephone bereavement support is widely used, there is minimal guidance as to what telephone support should comprise and little is known about what constitutes best practice. To better understand emerging best practice, Staniland and colleagues (2023) conducted a study to explore bereavement care providers’ perceptions of best practice in Continue reading →

Caregivers play an important role in caring for individuals receiving hospice care at home, but also face negative outcomes (e.g., burden, depression, anxiety) associated with caregiving at the end-of-life. There are many different interventions aimed at supporting caregivers, but few studies have broadly examined outcomes of interventions that support caregivers Continue reading →

Research suggests that those who are bereaved and experiencing homelessness may not be well supported in their bereavement. There is a need to understand how bereavement is experienced in the context of homelessness to be able to better support individuals who are experiencing homelessness and bereavement. This rapid review sought Continue reading →

The literature pertaining to community-based hospice wellness centres, especially concerning program evaluation, is sparse. This article describes the development and implementation of a mixed-method, rapid needs assessment for a nonprofit community-based hospice wellness centre in Ontario, Canada. As part of the needs assessment, a survey and focus groups were performed Continue reading →

The COVID-19 pandemic placed the hospice philosophy and associated values under pressure. Care provided by hospice nurses shifted from interdisciplinary and holistic care to a focus on avoiding the spread of infectious disease. To better understand the impact of the pandemic on hospice nurses, Bové and colleagues (2023) conducted a Continue reading →

Access to grief and bereavement services and support from social networks is important to avoid adverse bereavement outcomes such as prolonged grief symptoms. LGBT+ bereaved partners may experience additional stressors and barriers to support related to incorrect assumptions by clinicians about relationships, lack of acknowledgement of the depth of the Continue reading →

While early palliative care is widely recommended, many primary and specialized palliative care physicians indicate they lack the resources to provide it. Sue-A-Quan and colleagues (2023) conducted a survey of primary and specialized Canadian palliative care physicians to describe their perspectives regarding the conditions necessary to provide early palliative care. Continue reading →

Pain is a common symptom experienced at the end of life and cultural background can affect how a patient perceives, expresses, and makes decisions about pain. Givler and colleagues (2023) argue that understanding the beliefs, experiences, and values of patients at end of life and their families can aid in Continue reading →

While spiritual care is recognized as a core domain of palliative care, there are very few research studies that directly address spiritual care in pediatric palliative care.  To address this lack of research, Scott (2023) and colleagues sought to identify and describe the components of spiritual care for children with Continue reading →