A New Text-Based Approach to Delivering Quality Bereavement Care (Conference Poster)
Dr. Melissa Lunardini, Chief Clinical Officer, Help Texts (2024). A New Text-Based Approach to Delivering Quality Bereavement Care. European Grief Conference. https://europeangriefconference.org/Professional and community support during bereavement is in short supply and can be difficult to access (Aoun et al., 2020). Only a minority of grievers are extremely satisfied with the support they receive (Cacciatore et al., 2021). Researchers and bereavement professionals are seeking innovative low-cost, high-reach forms of support to meet grievers’ needs (Zuelke et al., 2021). This presentation will report on grievers’ perceptions of the acceptability and helpfulness of Grief Coach, an innovative, ongoing, expert, text-based grief support service aligned with a public health approach to bereavement care. The messages, grounded in contemporary models of grief and coping, provide support, information, and encourage engagement in adaptive coping behaviours. Participants in the evaluation were bereaved individuals who enrolled in Sue Ryder Grief Coach. Sue Ryder is a bereavement charity in the UK. Based on programme administrative data, the 6- and 12-month programme retention rate was 97.8% and 83.2%. Among 2,317 subscribers who met inclusion criteria for and completed a brief evaluation (N=1,318, response rate = 56%), 94.8% rated the programme as at least moderately helpful, and 95.4% said it contributed moderately to their sense of being supported in their grief. The most common themes emerging from a qualitative analysis of the written comments were how the programme helped with coping (59.4%) and appreciation for the programme (53.6%). These preliminary data suggest that bereaved individuals find the Grief Coach text message programme to be acceptable and helpful, thus making it a viable public health intervention for bereavement care.