Pilot study on feasibility of Intensive care unit bereavement follow-up service for family representatives of patients who die in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Around 30% of deaths at the Royal Adelaide Hospital (300 per annum) occur in the ICU or shortly after leaving ICU. The importance of reviewing end-of-life care in the ICU is well recognised. Benefits include assisting family members to process their grief and the opportunity to improve the care delivered to dying patients. Primary aim of this study is to establish the feasibility of delivering a bereavement service by the intensive care unit. Secondary aims are to assess the value of feedback received about the end-of-life care and how the service is viewed by family members. This is a prospective, observational study. All family representatives of patients who die in ICU are included in the study. They are excluded if a family representative is not contactable or declines participation.. Patients are referred to the bereavement follow-up service at medical consensus of end-of-life. After the patient's death, the appropriate family representative will be given a brochure providing bereavement information and a letter outlining the follow-up service. The 30 minute interview is based on the validated CAESAR tool, focused on care around the end-of-life. The responses will be recorded as Likert scores with the option to provide qualitative feedback. The bereavement calls will be made at 4 weeks, by clinicians who are experienced intensive care clinicians. The telephone interview questionnaire consists of 16 questions in 4 sections. The first section of the questionnaire relates to the care of the patient and support for the family. The second section relates to the communication between ICU and the family. The care of the patient and the discussion around organ donation are covered in the next two sections. The last section consists of open-ended question relating to how the family member feel the end-of-life care can be improved.