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Palliative care
Addressing bereavement among family surrogates of ICU decedents: the power of spiritual awareness and integrated end-of-life care
  1. Sara Pinto1,2,3,
  2. Cintia Silva Fassarella4
  1. 1Nursing School of Porto, Porto, Portugal
  2. 2CINTESIS@RISE, Porto, Portugal
  3. 3Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
  4. 4State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  1. Correspondence to Assistant Professor Sara Pinto, CINTESIS@RISE, Nursing School of Porto (ESEP), Porto, Portugal; sara.o.pinto{at}gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebnurs-2024-104017

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    Commentary on: Wen, F. H., Prigerson, H. G., Hu, T. H., Huang, C. C., Chou, W. C., Chuang, L. P., Chiang, M. C., & Tang, S. T. (2024). Associations Between Family-Assessed Quality-of-Dying-and-Death Latent Classes and Bereavement Outcomes for Family Surrogates of ICU Decedents. Crit Care Med. Published online February 1, 2024. doi:10.1097/CCM.0000000000006199.

    Implications for practice and research

    • Improving end-of-life (EoL) care in intensive care units is paramount for supporting patients and families.

    • Supporting families with EoL decisions can impact their postbereavement health-related quality of life.

    • Recognising and fostering spiritual self-awareness may enhance the bereavement experience.

    Context

    Intensive care units (ICUs) exposes both patients and families to an unfamiliar/stressful environment, featuring the urgency for enhanced end-of-life (EoL) care within ICUs.1 2 The emotional burden of EoL decisions can intensify the needs of bereaved families, leading to decreased quality of life, emotional distress and complicated grief. While previous studies acknowledge …

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    Footnotes

    • X @sara_o_pinto

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.