Frequently interacting and providing emotional support to the relatives of dying long-term care relatives has a strong impact on the family members’ satisfaction levels with the caregiving process, a new study has found.
Relatives’ evaluation of end-of-life communication with providers was higher when doctors spent more time with the resident during their final days. It also was higher when the treating physician visited the resident three times in their last week of life or when palliative care was given.
However, relatives felt worse about their communication with providers when the family members carried more emotional burdens.
“LTC (facility) managers should organize care for dying residents in a way that enables frequent interactions between physicians and relatives, and emotional support to relatives to improve their satisfaction with (end-of-life) communication,” researchers concluded.
A total of 736 relatives of deceased residents from 210 LTC facilities in Belgium, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland participated in the study.
The findings were published Wednesday in the Journal of Post-Acute and Long-Term Medicine.
