Clinical Research Directory

Confirming And Notifying Death

Sponsor: University Hospital, Strasbourg, France

Summary

Most physicians are confronted with the death of patients during their practice, often as early as residency. It is their legal responsibility to certify a patient's death, as well as often to notify their loved ones. Yet, these duties currently receive little or no specific training during the various cycles of medical education. This task is not easy, however, and young professionals experience it with difficulty. Literature data show that residents are confronted with death late in their medical education and that they are insufficiently prepared when they have to perform their first death certificate. Indeed, residents report significantly correlated practical and emotional difficulties. These difficulties are notably linked to a feeling of lack of preparation through theoretical courses, a lack of familiarity with administrative procedures, and insufficient mastery of communicating with families. The highlighting of these difficulties and the desire for appropriate and respectful care for the deceased and their families, for whom the moment of announcement influences the experience of grief, call for an improvement in teaching on these topics. It is in this sense that the project was born to explore whether the creation of training, before their independent exposure to death and its announcement, i.e. at the end of the second cycle, was relevant. A prerequisite for this type of training project is indeed to question the acceptability of such an approach by students.

Official title: Confirming And Notifying Death : Blended Learning and Its Evaluation by Medical Students, an Acceptability Study"

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