Paliativos

PO484
Implementation of a grief intervention protocol in palliative care
Pedro Frade 1 , Alexandra Coelho 2 , Joana Presa 1 , Filipa Tavares 2 , António Barbosa 1
1
Faculdade De Medicina Da Universidade De Lisboa, 2 Unidade de Medicina Paliativa, Hospital Santa Maria, Lisboa
Introduction: Support provided to family caregivers is a cornerstone of the palliative care philosophy. This support
is important during the end-of-life process in which family caregivers can be exposed to a physically and emotionally
exhausting experience, but should be extended to the following grieving period. Adaptive difficulties and emotional
disturbances can occur in both phases and can benefit from specialized psychological support.
Objectives: Describe the preliminary results of the implementation of a systematic grief intervention protocol with
family caregivers in palliative care.
Methods: Descriptive study. Quantitative data were obtained from the palliative care team database and from the
psychology team records.
Results: Sample consists of family caregivers of 73 cancer patients followed in palliative care at Lisboa Norte
Hospital. These patients with an average age of 68, mostly male (55%), died in the second half of 2015, mainly
in the hospital (74%). Psychological support was made available at team admission. These caregivers are mostly
women (72%), spouses (35%) or offspring (51%). During anticipatory grief stage 28% had psychological support.
After death, a letter of condolence was sent (up to 15 days after death) and phone call was made (one to two months
after death) to family caregivers providing grief support. This resulted in 38% of family caregivers benefiting from
psychological support. In total, 48% of family caregivers had psychological support at some stage of the process.
Conclusions: The systematic provision of psychological support to family caregivers in palliative care can result
in a considerable percentage of people seeking help. In this sample, in almost half of the cases, family caregivers
requested support at some point. These results highlight the importance of acute grief phase, where some
relatives previously focused on caring for others ask for help. These data highlight the need for sufficient human
resources to meet these requests.
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