It is crucial for palliative care teams to evaluate practices in assessing the risk of developing complicated grief among family members and caregivers of patients. A retrospective chart review of 99 patients seen by an inpatient palliative care team at an academic medical center was conducted to assess for documentation and prevalence of complicated grief risk factors. Factors included patients whose family are their primary caregiver, involvement of young children, mental health or substance use diagnoses in patients or their family members, a history of multiple losses, traumatic or sudden death. 64% of charts did not formally document bereavement assessment while 45% of families exhibited at least one risk factor for prolonged grief. This work suggests the need for increased education for PC providers on grief risk factors as well as the implementation of a formal screening assessment in order to best utilize limited psychosocial support resources to address needs.
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.