The Supporting Grief in Healthcare Training teaches healthcare providers to recognize and respond to grief with empathy and support. Providers learn to identify verbal and non-verbal signs of grief, use effective communication techniques, and offer both emotional and practical assistance. Understanding grief helps providers support patients, families, and colleagues during difficult times, improving compassionate care and fostering a supportive healthcare environment.
What You Will Learn:
- Verbal and non-verbal cues indicating grief
- Empathetic communication techniques
- Ways to offer emotional and practical support during grief
Details:
Course length: 1 hour; CME: 1
Languages: American English
Key features: Audio narration, learning activity, and post-assessment.
American Medical Compliance is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education to physicians. Our Continuing Medical Education (CME) program is committed to enhancing the knowledge, skills, and professional performance of healthcare providers to improve patient care outcomes. Through high-quality educational activities, we aim to address the identified educational gaps and to support the continuous professional development of our medical community. American Medical Compliance designates this activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits. Physicians should only claim this credit for their complete participation in this activity.
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Understanding Grief in Healthcare Settings
Medical professionals in all disciplines work with dying patients, and doing so effectively can be difficult. In the context of death and dying, patients, their loved ones, and the health care team must shift their goals.
Treating acute and chronic illness usually involves finding a tolerable path to eliminating or preventing the progression of a condition. Whereas treating terminal illness must involve preparing for death as well as efforts to mitigate symptoms. Understanding the experience of dying and grief allows providers to support the unique needs of patients, their loved ones, and other healthcare team members.
More than 80 percent of the deaths in the United States occur with at least several weeks’ warning. In most cases health care professionals will have been involved.
Whether death occurs at home or in an institution, there is a period during which health professionals have multiple opportunities to help the soon-to-be-bereaved. Staff members’ professional competence and the sincerity can help the bereaved cope with their grief when the patient dies.
By ensuring that the patient and family are made as comfortable as possible during this generally difficult time, staff members establish themselves as people who will help the survivors.
This course trains healthcare providers to support patients and families through the dying process with compassion. Providers learn to shift from treatment to symptom management and end-of-life care. They develop skills to recognize grief, communicate empathetically, and offer support. With most deaths occurring with warning, providers have key opportunities to assist. Ensuring comfort and showing sincere care helps families cope and trust the healthcare team. This training enhances patient care and strengthens provider-patient relationships.
Helping Survivors Cope with Guilt in Bereavement
In addition to facilitating a smooth separation from a dying patient, health care workers should help relieve survivors of guilt. Although the source of this guilt is unclear, its presence is ubiquitous.
Nurses and physicians have the opportunity to lessen the reality-basis of survivors’ guilt.
The newly bereaved should leave a deathbed with the faith that they and the medical staff have done the right thing for the person who died. Health professionals should help diminish the occasions for survivors to blame themselves or the medical and hospital staff.
To accomplish this, family members must be kept informed as care progresses and be permitted to take part in decision making whenever possible.
This course teaches healthcare providers how to support bereaved families by easing feelings of guilt after a patient’s death. Providers learn to foster a smooth separation, ensure families feel informed, and involve them in decision-making. By communicating openly and demonstrating compassionate care, providers help families trust that they and the medical team did the right thing. This training strengthens provider-patient relationships, reduces emotional distress, and improves end-of-life care.
Types of Grief and Unique Reactions
Anticipatory Grief: Is defined as grief before a loss, associated with diagnosis of an acute, chronic, and/or terminal illness experienced by the patient, family, or caregivers. Examples of anticipatory grief include actual or fear of potential loss of health, independence, body part, financial stability, choice, or mental function.
Acute Grief: Begins immediately after the death of a loved one and includes the separation response and response to stress. During this period of acute grief, the bereaved person may be confused and/or uncertain about their identity or social role. They may disengage from their usual activities and experience disbelief and shock that their loved one is gone.
Disenfranchised Grief: Is grief over any loss that is not validated or recognized. Those affected by this type of grief do not feel the freedom to openly acknowledge their grief. Individuals at risk for disenfranchised grief are those who have lost loved ones to stigmatized illnesses or events, such as AIDS. Mothers and/or fathers may grieve over terminated pregnancies or stillborn babies.
Grief is different for every person and every loss, and it can be damaging to judge or label a person’s grief, especially during early bereavement.
This course trains healthcare providers to recognize anticipatory, acute, and disenfranchised grief. Providers learn how grief affects patients, families, and caregivers and why support matters. The training stresses assessing grief progression without judgment to determine when to intervene. Understanding grief helps providers offer compassionate care, respect the grieving process, and identify complicated grief or depression. This knowledge improves support for patients and families during difficult times.
Addressing Grief Among Healthcare Professionals
The impact of COVID-19 has significantly impacted the mental health of healthcare workers worldwide, and they would greatly benefit from internal and external continuous support.
Healthcare workers experience many challenging and complex emotions, such as loss, guilt, frustration, anger, and powerlessness. These emotions place them at risk for detrimental symptoms related to grief, moral distress, and compassion fatigue.
Evidence from previous pandemics suggests that the psychological burden is immediate and may linger for years.
For example, studies of the SARS 2003 pandemic in China report that up to 40% of healthcare workers from high-risk areas still had distressing symptoms three years after the pandemic.
The healing process from the pandemic is not a “one and done” prospect and will likely require trial and error as healthcare workers discover what strategies and techniques resonate.
Overtime success with small steps will increase energy and the capacity for more encompassing self-care practices such as yoga and meditation. There is always a starting point, no matter how small, and the journey will take as long as it takes for each individual.
This course helps healthcare providers manage the long-term mental health effects of COVID-19, including grief, moral distress, and compassion fatigue. Providers learn the value of ongoing support and gradual recovery. The training highlights past pandemics, showing distress can last for years. Providers explore small self-care strategies, like mindfulness, to build resilience. This knowledge strengthens well-being and sustains their ability to care for others.
