Although the Medicare Hospice Benefit mandates that hospices offer bereavement support services to families for at least 1 year following the death of a patient, it does not stipulate which services they should offer. As a result, little is known about what bereavement support services hospices provide, especially on a national scale. The current study recruited a national sample of hospice representatives who responded to an open-ended question that asked, “What types of bereavement support services does your hospice provide to families?” Seventy-six viable responses were recorded and content analyzed. Four overarching domains emerged: (a) timing of support, (b) providers of support, (c) targets of support, and (d) formats of support. Other notable findings included the underutilization of bereavement support services and the utility of informal support formats. These findings present implications for future study regarding which specific aspects of hospice bereavement support services are most beneficial to bereaved families.

尽管 Medicare 临终关怀福利规定临终关怀机构在患者去世后至少 1 年内向其家属提供丧亲支持服务，但并未规定他们应提供哪些服务。因此，人们对临终关怀提供的丧亲支持服务知之甚少，尤其是在全国范围内。目前的研究招募了全国临终关怀代表样本，他们回答了一个开放式问题，即“你们的临终关怀为家庭提供哪些类型的丧亲支持服务？” 记录了 76 个可行的响应并分析了内容。出现了四个总体领域：(a) 支持的时间，(b) 支持的提供者，(c) 支持的目标，以及 (d) 支持的形式。其他值得注意的发现包括丧亲支持服务未得到充分利用和非正式支持形式的效用。这些发现对未来的研究具有重要意义，即临终关怀丧亲支持服务的哪些具体方面对丧亲家庭最有益。