GRIEF SUPPORT FOR NURSING STAFF IN THE ICU

Abstract

Patient death is a stressful experience for the patient, family, and the healthcare team. Nurses often have only informal resources for coping with the sadness and grief they might experience. Realizing the need for nursing grief support, a group of staff nurses from the intensive care unit formed a grief support group. Using information from the literature and critical incident stress debriefing, the group developed support interventions to aid intensive care unit staff after patient death.