Joint Seminar l Communication at the end-of-life: An initial study of communication and interaction in community-based services

From a medical perspective, the end-of-life stage refers to the final months leading up to expected death which is often due to an incurable disease or degenerative condition. Communication during this stage is a fundamental component of ethical and effective medical and social care (Chan et al., 2020; Chow et al., 2019). Notions such as patient-centred care emphasise the importance of interpersonal interaction for the individual approaching the end-of-life as well as the families, friends and communities involved in the grieving process (Scholz et al., 2020). A majority of studies focusing on communication at the end-of-life have drawn on data collected in medical settings such as hospitals and palliative care units (Banerjee and Rewegan, 2017). However, as the end-of-life is increasingly being managed at home or in non-clinical community settings, a wider variety of staff are becoming involved in providing support to people as they negotiate the complexities of grief (Chung et al., 2020). This seminar presents the findings of a preliminary study that looked at communication at the end-of-life from the perspective of a group of non-clinical workers in Hong Kong and Australia. Data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic and analysis highlighted aspects of communication that were ‘lost’ as a result of restrictions on interactions as well as unique adaptations developed by workers as they sought to preserve key aspects of their relationships with service users.

References:

Banerjee, A. & Rewegan, A. (2017). Intensifying relational care: The challenge of dying in long-term residential care. Journal of Canadian Studies, 50 (2), 396-421.

Chan, C., Chow, M., Chan, S., Sanson-Fisher, R., Waller, A., Lai, T. & Kwan, C. (2020). Nurses’ perceptions of and barriers to the optimal end‐of‐life care in hospitals: A cross‐sectional study. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 29 (7-8), 1209-1219.

Chow, A., Caserta, M., Lund, D., Suen, M., Xiu, D., Chan,, I. & Chu, K. (2019). Dual-process bereavement group intervention (DPBGI) for widowed older adults. The Gerontologist, 59 (5), 983-994.

Chung, R., Dong, D., Chau, N., Chau, P., Yeoh, E. & Wong, E. (2020). Examining the gaps and issues of end-of-life care among older population through the lens of socioecological model – A multi-method qualitative study of Hong Kong. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17 (14), 5072.

Scholz, B., Goncharov, L., Emmerich, N., Lu, V., Chapman, M., Clark, S., Wilson, T., Slade, D. & Mitchell, I. (2020). Clinicians’ accounts of communication with patients in end-of-life care contexts: A systematic review. Patient Education and Counseling, 103 (10), 1913-1921.