Abstract

Although palliative and hospice care strives to enhance the quality of life of patients' family, little is known about their unique difficulties and requirements. We provide a complete review of the literature. Between January 2017 and November 2018, a narrative review was published to provide an expert overview of peer-reviewed, English-written original research publications and reviews on psychosocial and existential problems, supportive needs, and interventions for relatives during the patients' disease trajectory. There were a total of 64 publications listed. During the patient's whole illness trajectory, relatives report significant rates of psychological and existential discomfort, burden, and psychological morbidity. Furthermore, family report an unacceptably high number of unfulfilled demands, the most pressing of which is information. Problems and wants of relatives are part of complex systems that are impacted. Problems and demands of relatives are part of complex systems impacted by a variety of socio-demographic variables, patient-relative relationships, and the interdependence of numerous psychological processes. Early support treatments for family along the illness trajectory have been shown to be practical, and secondary data from randomised studies suggests that offering early palliative care to relatives has positive impacts. Relatives should be addressed to a greater extent in the everyday practice of palliative and hospice care, therefore additional study is needed to uncover more comprehensive systematic information to reduce relatives' psychological load and enhance their quality of life.

Keywords: Palliative Care, Relatives, Family Caregiver, Needs, Quality of Life, Hospice Care