Prolonged Grief Disorder
Conditions
Keywords
Palliative Care, Screening tool, Assessment tool, Relatives, Support needs, Anticipatory Grief, Palliative patients, Caregivers
Brief summary
The primary purpose of this study is to validate the prognostic screening tool from The Aarhus Bereavement Study (TABS) and to implement a systematic support for relatives of palliative care patients in order to prevent the development of prolonged grief disorder. Depending on their identified support needs, the relatives are offered different interventions. It is evaluated whether this procedure of screening and intervening are able to reduce the risk of developing prolonged grief disorder.
Detailed description
PRIMARY OUTCOME: identification of the support needs of relatives of palliative care patients SECONDARY OUTCOME: evaluation of the initiated interventions and whether these are able to reduce the risk of developing prolonged grief disorder PARTICIPANTS: Relatives (age 18-90) of patients affiliated with specialized palliative care in The Capital Region of Denmark. The relatives will complete a survey and prognostic screening tool at respectively 2 weeks (T1) and every 6 months (T2) from the time that the patients is affiliated to the specialized palliative care and until the death of the patient. This will happen regardless the status of the patient - that is, whether or not the patient continues being affiliated with specialized palliative care, or the patient is being referred to another palliative care units or doesn't need palliative care anymore. Furthermore the relatives will complete a follow-up survey and the diagnostic questionnaire PGD-13 at respectively 6 months (T3) and 18 months (T4) after the death of the patient (post loss). It will be evaluated whether there are any diffences in the grief symptoms of relatives of patients with a malign versus non-malign disease. It will also be evaluated whether there is an association between the intervention the relatives received from the palliative care unit at Rigshospital and their grief symptoms post loss.
Interventions
OTHERSupport of relatives
Screening of the support needs of relatives
Sponsors
Rigshospitalet, Denmark
Study design
Allocation
NA
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
SUPPORTIVE_CARE
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* relatives of palliative care patients with relation to Department of Palliative Care, (Rigshospitalet) * relatives identified by the patient
Exclusion criteria
* relatives who do not read or understand danish * relatives who are cognitive disabled
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Support needs of relatives of palliative patients (baseline) | 1 month from the time that the patient is referred to the palliative care team. | Identification of support needs of relatives assessed by the prognostic screening tool from The Aarhus Bereavement Study (TABS). |
| Change in Support needs of relatives of palliative patients from baseline | 6 months | Identification of support needs of relatives assessed by the prognostic screening tool from |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Prolonged grief | 6 months post-loss. | Symptoms of prolonged grief measured using the Prolonged Grief Disorder - 13 (PG-13, Prigerson et al, 2009). Scores ranging from 11 to 55 are used in the current study, and a higher score indicates a worse outcome. However, there are no officially recommended cut-off scores (Pohlkamp et al, 2018). |
Countries
Denmark
Outcome results
None listed