On 2016 Jun 20, Cicely Saunders Institute Journal Club commented:

This paper was discussed at a Journal Club at the Cicely Saunders Institute, King's College London, on Wednesday 1st June, 2016.

We felt the subject matter under study was extremely important and has significant implications for clinical practice. The experience of medical professionals who support bereaved children is under researched and this study makes an important contribution to the body of evidence in this field. We discussed the recruitment and sampling procedures used and felt that the self-selecting nature of the sample may limit the representativeness of the findings. The findings may exclude the experiences of certain groups such as men (as a large proportion of the sample were women) and people who experience significant distress due to bereavement. However, we acknowledge the difficulties in recruiting a population that is considered vulnerable and commend the authors for providing this evidence to back the need for more support for both bereaved children and medical professionals supporting them. Moreover, we wondered how the findings from the two groups of participants (i.e. bereaved children and medical professionals) linked together and whether it would be worth separating the findings from these two participant groups and discussing them in more detail. The findings of this study can be used to make recommendations to clinical practice (e.g. train clinicians in bereavement support), as well as to hospitals (e.g. make hospital environments more child-friendly). We look forward to more research on the experience of bereavement so that we can support bereaved individuals better.

Commentary by Cathryn Pinto (@CathrynPinto) and Steve Marshall (@hollowaystevo)

On 2016 Jun 20, Cicely Saunders Institute Journal Club commented:

This paper was discussed at a Journal Club at the Cicely Saunders Institute, King's College London, on Wednesday 1st June, 2016.

We felt the subject matter under study was extremely important and has significant implications for clinical practice. The experience of medical professionals who support bereaved children is under researched and this study makes an important contribution to the body of evidence in this field. We discussed the recruitment and sampling procedures used and felt that the self-selecting nature of the sample may limit the representativeness of the findings. The findings may exclude the experiences of certain groups such as men (as a large proportion of the sample were women) and people who experience significant distress due to bereavement. However, we acknowledge the difficulties in recruiting a population that is considered vulnerable and commend the authors for providing this evidence to back the need for more support for both bereaved children and medical professionals supporting them. Moreover, we wondered how the findings from the two groups of participants (i.e. bereaved children and medical professionals) linked together and whether it would be worth separating the findings from these two participant groups and discussing them in more detail. The findings of this study can be used to make recommendations to clinical practice (e.g. train clinicians in bereavement support), as well as to hospitals (e.g. make hospital environments more child-friendly). We look forward to more research on the experience of bereavement so that we can support bereaved individuals better.

Commentary by Cathryn Pinto (@CathrynPinto) and Steve Marshall (@hollowaystevo)