2015 World Congress of Psycho-Oncology

Patients’ deaths often have profound and lasting impact, deeply affecting not only their loved ones, but also their healthcare providers.  There is a compelling need to better understand how we can best support those impacted by loss in cancer settings.  This symposium will feature four international speakers whose research focuses on grief and loss. The first presentation will describe findings from a survey of palliative care services in 25 countries conducted by the European Association for Palliative Care Bereavement Task Force that examined the types of bereavement care offered.  The second presentation will describe a model of hospital-based transitional support to assist bereaved families of pediatric cancer patients. The final presentation will focus on the impact of patient loss on providers, focusing on a mixed methods study of the grief experienced by pediatric oncologists.  The symposium will conclude with a discussion about the implications of these studies for advancing bereavement research and for care of our patients, our colleagues, and ourselves.

Chair: Wendy Lichtenthal
Discussant: David Kissane

S14-1: Bereavement Services in European Palliative Care: A Descriptive Study by the Bereavement Taskforce of the European Association for Palliative Care, M. Guldin

S14-2: Transitional Social Support: A Developing Framework for Hospital-based Bereavement Care Following the Death of a Child from Cancer, L. Donovan

S14-4: Delivering Bereavement Support Using Telemental Health: Preliminary Findings from an Open Trial of  Meaning-Centered Grief Therapy Delivered through Videoconferencing, W. Lichtenthal