Health care providers often experience the death of patients in their care, which can lead to grief reactions. If not adequately addressed, grief can lead to burnout, compassion fatigue, and psychological distress. A systematic review of the literature was undertaken using PubMed, PsycInfo, and CINAHL databases for English-language articles focusing on services available to address health care provider grief. Twelve articles were identified for review, 9 of which focused on pediatric health care providers. Interventions and measurement tools varied considerably between studies. Outcomes were variable and inconclusive. Health care provider grief can have serious implications for individual care providers as well as the health care system. Controlled experimental research is needed to determine how to effectively address this grief across a wide variety of specialties. A grief measurement tool targeted at health care providers as well as an accurate indication of the prevalence of health care provider grief would further the science in this area.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.