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Educare

Educare

ENERO 2009 N° 1 Volumen 7

The importance of Primary Care in the grieving process

Section: LEARNING TO TEACH

Authors

Miriam Navarro Arbona

Position

Alumna del 2º curso de la EUE “La Fe”, Valencia.

Contact email: miriam_n_a@hotmail.com

Abstract

One of the most valued nursing interventions is to provide support at difficult times during life and its vital cycle.
Primary care nurses are professionals who are usually familiar with the details of their patients’ life and therefore these nurses are more predisposed to give support in the primary care given during the grieving process.
It is fundamental for the nurse to know how to differentiate between normal grieving and pathological grieving and when the patient should be referred to mental health services. Normal grieving is painful and usually overcome without professional help. Thus, the nurse should focus on risk patients, scheduling them for a follow up two months after the relative’s death to assess their progress. Role inversion techniques and attempting to guess what the deceased would think are employed in grief management. It is also useful to share the feelings and memories with people who knew the deceased. However, many of these patients do not have a close friend with whom to share their grief and in these cases the nurse should make them aware of her or his availability outside scheduled visits if they need to talk. The primary care nurse is then the only resource in these cases.

Keywords:

Primary Care; coping; facinggrief

Versión en Español

Título:

La importancia de la Atención Primaria en el proceso del duelo