BEST for Family

Persons with life-limiting illnesses die most often following a lengthy period during which they received family support and care by an interprofessional health care team. Family caregiving followed by the loss of a loved one is stressful, incisive experiences that may have a negative impact on family members’ physical and mental health. Evidence-based recommendations suggest a three-tiered approach to end-of-life and bereavement support. However, these recommendations have not yet been adapted to the Swiss context and are often insufficiently integrated into routine care delivery.

The implementation project includes a context analysis (BEST Care) to develop and adapt the evidence-based family end-of-life and bereavement support (BEST for Family) to the local contexts and to develop a tailored, participatory implementation strategy in two specialized palliative care services in an acute setting. A mixed-methods approach with pre-, mid-, post-, interviews with health professionals as well as an embedded qualitative study will be used to evaluate the implementation processes and outcomes, and to assess the achieved quality of care from families’ perspectives.

BEST for Family addresses a significant know-do gap in palliative care and improves families’ access to evidence-informed, health-promoting engagement and support at the end-of-life and in bereavement. The findings of this study will provide important knowledge on implementation processes and outcomes of family care, which will inform scalability to other palliative care services and settings.

This study is carried out in collaboration with Stadtspital Zürich and Kantonsspital St. Gallen and is supported by the Gloria Grathwohl Palliative Foundation.