Close but not close enough: How distance caregiving is associated with hospice family caregiver hospice communication experiences

Close but not close enough: How distance caregiving is associated with hospice family caregiver hospice communication experiences
Health Communication, by Lauren T Starr, Karla Washington, Kyle Pitzer, Debra Parker Oliver, George Demiris; 3/24
Half of hospice family caregivers report having unmet information needs, which can contribute to poor pain and symptom management, emergency department use, and hospice disenrollment for care-recipients and to caregiver strain and stress. Effective communication between hospice teams and family caregivers is critical yet communication inadequacies persist. Despite the growing prevalence of distance caregiving, including in hospice care, and the relationship between caregiver proximity and communication effectiveness, little is known about how caregiver proximity is associated with caregiver perceptions of hospice communication.