Researchers call for more investment in bereavement care

The public health toll of bereavement is well documented in the medical literature, with bereaved people suffering from mental health problems, decreased quality of life, medical neglect, cancer, heart disease, suicide, death, and more. It increases your risk of exposure to many harmful outcomes. Now, in the published paper, lancet public healthResearchers urge greater investment in building support for grief-related suffering, both at the community and organizational level.

The authors urge the increasing global mortality caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, suicide, drug overdose, homicide, armed conflict, and terrorism to strengthen the provision of sustainable and accessible bereavement care. He emphasized the growing urgency for national and global frameworks to Unfortunately, current national and global investments in bereavement support services are woefully inadequate to address this growing public health crisis, according to researchers at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and collaborating organizations. Said it was enough.

They will firmly establish bereavement support services within healthcare institutions, ensure continuity of family-centred care, and strengthen community-based support through the development of ‘caring communities’ and a grief-informed workforce. We proposed a model for period care. This model emphasizes the responsibility of the health system to build bridges to the community so that grievers feel supported during the transition.

Sylvester’s Bereavement Care Promotion Center advocates just this model of transitional care. “We are thrilled to be able to provide this new center with such an exciting and rewarding experience,” said Wendy G. Lichtenthal, Ph.D., FT, FAPOS, founding director of the new center and associate professor of public health sciences in the Miller School. “And the system is taking bereavement care into account. Sylvester is leading the way by investing in the creation of this center, which is the first to focus on delivering a transitional bereavement care model.”

A further feature of the center is its roots in bereavement science, promoting an approach to care based on both research and community engagement.

The authors focused on palliative care, which seeks to provide a holistic approach to minimizing suffering for critically ill patients and their families, as one area in critical need of improvement. They cited the Lancet Commission’s landmark report on the value of global access to palliative care and pain relief, and highlighted the “undoubted need for improved bereavement care delivery infrastructure.” One of those reports acknowledged that bereavement has been overlooked and called for a re-prioritization of the social determinants of death, dying and grief.

“In theory and in practice, palliative care should culminate in bereavement care,” explained Lichtenthal, corresponding author of the paper. “However, bereavement care is often under-resourced and suffers from inequalities in access.”

Transitional bereavement care model

So how do health systems and communities prioritize bereavement services to ensure no bereaved family goes without the support they need? Transitional bereavement care models provide a roadmap To do.

“We must reposition bereavement care from an afterthought to a public health priority. To close the gap in provision between health care providers and community-based bereavement services, transitional bereavement They need care,” Lichtenthal said. “Our model seeks to enhance the quality and availability of services provided by health systems, while also recognizing that resources for bereavement care are finite within a given health care institution. This highlights the need to help build community capacity to support grievers.”