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Guidelines for the psychosocial and bereavement support of family caregivers of palliative care patients.

The World Health Organization and palliative care standards in numerous countries recognize that support for family caregivers, including bereavement follow up, is a core function of palliative care. Approximately 30-40% of caregivers will experience psychological distress and there are minimal evidence based strategies to assist health professionals in their support of caregivers. Hence, it is pleasing that guidelines for the psychosocial and bereavement support of family caregivers of palliative care patients have now been produced. The guidelines were systematically developed by the Centre for Palliative Care (c/o St Vincent's Hospital and The University of Melbourne , Australia) and endorsed by key institutions nationally and internationally.

For more information please see: Hudson P. et al. ‘Guidelines for the psychosocial and bereavement support of family caregivers of palliative care patients’.

The article is available at http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/jpm.2011.0466