Quality of end-of-life care, quality of dying and death, and grief in bereaved family caregivers.

BACKGROUND

The World Health Organization approximates that around 56.8 million individuals require palliative care annually, with 25.7 million of them being in the final stage of life. Ensuring high-quality care, particularly towards the end of life, can significantly enhance the quality of dying and death (QODD) for terminally ill patients. This, in turn, may alleviate grief among their loved ones following their passing. This descriptive study seeks to explore the correlation between the quality of end-of-life care (EOLC), QODD, and the experience of grief among bereaved family caregivers.

METHODS

A total of 318 participants, the primary family caregivers of patients who died within 3-12 months, were recruited for this study by the purposive sampling method. The instruments used for collecting data included (1) the participant demographic data form, (2) the family APGAR questionnaire, (3) The Family Satisfaction with the End-of-Life Care (4) the quality of dying and death questionnaire (QODD), and (5) the inventory of complicated grief. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, and Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient.

RESULTS

The results showed that bereaved family caregivers had satisfaction with the quality of care and their perceptions of QODD at a moderate level. Bereaved family caregivers had 74.8% of normal grief. The quality of EOLC and QODD had a significant negative correlation with grief in bereaved family caregivers. The quality of EOLC also had a significant positive correlation with the QODD.

CONCLUSION

Improving the quality of EOLC, can improve the QODD and help bereaved family caregivers cope with grief.