Grief training in medical education is most often delivered as short voluntary workshops focused on transmitting knowledge about death, dying and bereavement¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2019 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Across 37 included publications, most grief training was described as short voluntary workshops or seminar series whose majority focus was transmitting knowledge about the ethical and legal dimensions of death, dying and bereavement. → Sikstrom L 2019

Evidence¶

Sikstrom L 2019¶

Sikstrom L, Saikaly R, Ferguson G, Mosher PJ, Bonato S, Soklaridis S. (2019). Being there: A scoping review of grief support training in medical education. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0224325

q2 · i? · review · r2

Scoping review of five bibliographic databases plus grey literature and reference-list scanning, screened and abstracted by three investigators. The review reports that "Most articles described short voluntary grief training workshops" focused on knowledge transmission at all training levels.

"Thirty-seven articles published between 1979 and 2019 were analyzed. Most articles described short voluntary grief training workshops. At all training levels, the majority of these workshops focused on transmitting knowledge about the ethical and legal dimensions of death, dying and bereavement in medicine."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Only 14% of the reviewed grief-training articles provided a theoretical framework or empirical definition of grief, and all focused on bereavement grief
• Implementing grief training faces multi-level challenges including small class sizes, faculty turnover and low motivation because some physicians do not consider grief support part of their job
• In a Danish RCT, trained physicians identified more cases of complicated grief and prescribed fewer psychotropic drugs than untrained control physicians — related
• Grief training outcomes were usually measured by immediate self-assessment showing increased knowledge and comfort, with few studies measuring patient care, physician well-being or longitudinal effects — related
• Trainees valued grief training activities involving reflection, debriefing with peers and the direct involvement of bereaved caregivers — related