Palliative Care Sometimes Adds To Families’ Stress Burden

Palliative-care counseling from trained specialists is not routinely needed for all families of patients with chronic critical illnesses and sometimes it might worsen their emotional distress, cautions a recent study.

 Habitually providing scarce palliative care services to cases indiscriminately may be ineffective when the meetings are limited to just one or two sessions, reported researchers in the July 5 issue of JAMA.

 Family caregivers were no less depressed or anxious when they received only routine counseling from staff members in intensive care units, researchers found. With further support and training, ICU teams could deliver primary palliative care for surrogate decision makers of some patients, they suggested.

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