In a new study, researchers suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to drastic changes in how hospitals provide end-of-life care to patients and their families.
With strict no-visiting limitations in place in an effort to stem contagion, patients have been dying alone.
The research was conducted by a team at the University of Pennsylvania.
Extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary problem-solving.
The pandemic is an opportunity for clinicians to think differently and consider a decision-making framework that minimizes infection risk, honors patient/family relationships, upholds culturally important rituals of dying, and mitigates potential psychological harm precipitated by the trauma of family separation.
In the paper, the researchers suggest an alternative pathway to patients dying alone in a hospital.
They advocate that infection control, public health concerns, and family-centered care can coexist and urge the reconsideration of the adult family members present at the bedside of patients during COVID-19.
With careful screening, education, pragmatic psychosocially oriented facilitation, and teamwork, doctors can accommodate the very real needs of patients to not be alone, for families to fulfill their sense of responsibility and duty, and for staff to uphold the tenets of family-centered care.
The team says dying alone, despite adhering to social distancing, should not be part of dying at all.
One author of the study is Martha A. Q. Curley, PhD, RN, FAAN, Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing).
The study is published in the journal Intensive Care Medicine.
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