Helping to close the gaps in bereavement care for oncology nurses: the role of online resources and information

CareSearch is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health.

Helping to close the gaps in bereavement care for oncology nurses: the role of online resources and information Deb Rawlings, Jennifer Tieman

CNSA 2016

What will be covered today:• Relevance to cancer nurses• Finding the bereavement evidence – why does it matter?• CareSearch resources

• Search filters• Clinical evidence pages• Resources for patients, carers, families

Introduction• Cancer nurses work to support carers and families during

cancer diagnosis and treatment, and may also need to provide support in dealing with anticipatory grief when families realise that the journey is coming to an end.

• Bereavement support often continues after the patient has died: when relatives return to see ward staff; or in attending memorial services or other rituals.

• Nurses will also often refer patients and families (or colleagues) to relevant information in relation to supporting the bereaved, however finding evidence based resources can be challenging.

Why evidence matters• Informs direct care at the individual level

• Guides decision making (policy and service)

• Helps assess value of a particular approach• Deciding between options

• Provides a basis to disagree• If you want to recommend another course of action it is important to have

evidence to back up what you are saying.

Best Practice• Bereavement through the death of a loved one is a

situation that touches many lives and crosses all national boundaries. Bereavement care is important, and like any service that is provided can benefit from evidence of best practice, now available in a growing body of international literature.

• This care is often provided by practitioners working alone or in small teams without ready access to the databases holding this literature.

New Evidence Tools: Search Filters• In a partnership with the Australian Centre for Grief

and Bereavement, CareSearch has developed the Bereavement Search Filter (BSF) to provide trustworthy and easy access to international published evidence (in English) indexed in the PubMed database.

• The tools provided using the BSF are available free to anyone with access to the Web, and can support all practitioners working in the field of bereavement care, providing one-click access to current global evidence.

Easy to FindCharacteristics of ideal search:

• Open access (no registration)• Pre written (easy)• One click (fast)• Retrieves what we need and excludes what we don’t (accurate)

Ideally, what we would like is a search that does all of these things.

Why use a search filter?An “evidence based" search = known effectivenessBenefits

Saves timeIncreases likelihood of quality retrievalsRemoves individual search burdenEmbeds technical expertiseFacilitates knowledge translation

Methodology• An Expert Advisory Group comprising bereavement

practitioners and academics was established to develop the Search Filters.

• A palliative care clinician was appointed to revise and develop new bereavement webpage content for use by health professionals.

• Associated pages for patients and families were written and relevant resources identified.

• The new web content was externally reviewed for authority and relevance before being uploaded.

Other related Search Filters• Grief and Loss (general – rather than the loss of a loved one)

Search Filter and topic searches

You may need to find grief and loss information for many reasons:• your patients• Your colleagues• Yourself

Also just released• Costs of Bereavement Care

Summary Bereavement Search Filter

Created by CareSearch and used on the websiteBenefits for clinicians

Topic searches are targeted to clinical practiceSearches are fast and easy to use (no need to be an expert searcher)Searches are reliableSearches are free and open access (no need for logon or paid subscription)Barriers to using evidence in practice can be reduced

Clinical Resources• Clinical Evidence pages

• Based on RCT or SRs• Each links to a PubMed Topic Search• Each links to a review collection

• Consumer resources• Based on summaries of best available evidence

• All content is peer reviewed and freely available

Each page includes: Key messages/ an overview / what is known / active research areas and controversies

An example of the different types of bereavement PubMed searches –developed using the filter

You can create your own search if it isn’t on the list

I ran a search with the bereavement filter on cancer and anticipatory grief

Here I ran the Multicultural bereavement search.

For Patients, Carers, Families• Good quality easy to read resources are available for

consumers about bereavement • Online palliative care information can help support patients and

families at the end of life.• Having trustworthy information can help encourage involvement in

decision making.• You can safely direct your patients or their families to these

• Readability formulas help to make patient information match the reading skills of the intended user

• They can all be printed for those who do not use computers

Conclusion• Search filters can facilitate access to relevant literature and

evidence globally and thereby reduce the searching burden for the diverse health professionals working around the world in the field of bereavement care.

• Evidence based page content can inform the practice of those in cancer who care for patients and families approaching the end of their life and in bereavement.

CareSearch is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health.

CareSearch would like to thank the many people who contribute their time and expertise to the project, including members of the National Advisory Group and the Knowledge Network Management Group.www.caresearch.com.au