• Patricia Yi, Pilar Barreto, Carmen Soler, Miguel Fombuena, Victoria Espinar, Lorenzo Pascual, Ramón Navarro, Remedio González, Jordi Bernabeu, and Jesús Suárez.
• Department of Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatments, University of Valencia, Av. Blasco Ibáñez, 21 46010 Valencia, Spain. patricia.yi@uv.es
• Palliat Med. 2006 Jul 1;20(5):521-31.

AbstractGrief support for relatives of patients in palliative care is recognized as a fundamental practice within palliative medicine. The aim of this research was to determine the nature and extent of grief support programs offered to relatives of patients in palliative care in Spain. A postal survey was carried out among members of the Spanish Society of Palliative Care. The members' names were obtained through the Society's 2000 Directory, which lists 160 different teams, of which 50% answered a questionnaire made up of 34 questions, some open-ended and others multiple choice. Results show that 88.6% of the services include grief support, that mainly emotional and one-to-one care is provided (92.4 and 89.9%, respectively), and that the number of psychologists and social workers in each team is limited. The risk factors most commonly taken into account by professionals are: absence of family support (36.92%) and the bereaved's case history (21.54%); while the most widely used diagnostic criteria for complicated bereavement are blame and depression (12.5 and 11.36%). In conclusion, it can be seen that bereavement services are not completely consolidated in Spain and there is a need for a greater variety of intervention strategies.

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