Bereavement process of professional caregivers after deaths of their patients: A meta-ethnographic synthesis of qualitative studies and an integrated model.

BACKGROUND: Professional caregivers bereave after patients' deaths. Such bereavement can exert considerable influences on huge numbers of professional caregivers and their clients. No study, however, has synthesized scattered evidence on the core process of such bereavement, and no corresponding model exists.

AIM: To systematically review and synthesize the experience of bereavement after patients' deaths, and in particular, its core process, in professional caregivers' own descriptions in existing literature, and to propose an integrated model on that basis.

DESIGN: A review was conducted following Enhancing Transparency in Reporting the Synthesis of Qualitative Research Statement (ENTREQ).

DATA SOURCE: CINAHL Plus, PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus, Embase, and Web of Science were searched in April 2018 with keywords as combinations of "professional caregiver" and "bereavement". References of eligible studies from pre-planned searches were manually screened.

REVIEW METHODS: Full-text and English-written qualitative studies published in peer-reviewed journals in or after 1980 were included. Their qualities were assessed by two of the authors independently. Meta-ethnography was employed to synthesize findings from previous studies.

RESULTS: Twenty-three studies met the inclusion criteria, the majority conducted in Western and developed regions of the world. Three core concepts were identified in the core professional bereavement process: (1) perceived nature of patients' deaths; (2) bereavement reactions; (3) accumulated changes. Each concept consists of both a personal dimension and a professional dimension. Risk and protective factors and coping methods were unveiled to influence the core process. An integrated, process-oriented and multi-dimensional model was proposed on the basis of these findings.

CONCLUSIONS: Patients' deaths are significant events for professional caregivers, and they bring both personal and professional, both temporal and long-lasting impacts. Professional bereavement is distinctive from familial bereavement and deserves serious attention for its own sake. Attention, acknowledgment, and in-time support must be given to professional caregivers when they encounter patients' deaths.