When your seriously ill patient is a parent: a primer in family-focused care for the CL psychiatrist

Abstract: With the increasing prevalence of cancer in younger adults and the trend towards later childbearing, more parents are facing the simultaneous challenges of raising children and serious illness. CL psychiatrists routinely encounter these patients and need skills to assess and provide basic interventions to address the significant distress of these patients and their families. This interactive session will provide the general adult CL psychiatrist with the context to understand the importance of parenting in medical decision-making and some basic skills for family assessment, communication about illness, and the impact of end-of-life care on bereavement outcomes.

Dr. Levenson will present a case of an adult with serious illness who is parenting children under 18 and frame the clinical dilemmas for the CL psychiatrist. He will engage the audience in raising their own clinical questions about how to support patients who are struggling with the needs of their families in context of their illness.

Dr. Rosenstein will review the epidemiology of medical illness in young adults and the importance of addressing parenting needs as critical, but often overlooked, aspects of the psychiatric care of seriously ill parents.

Dr. Muriel will provide clinical teaching about how to integrate family assessment into general CL consultation. She will describe accessible strategies for eliciting parenting concerns, providing general guidance and offering additional resources for seriously ill parents.

Dr. Lichtenthal will discuss predictors of poor bereavement outcomes in family members. She will discuss how CL psychiatrists can engage in “bereavement-conscious” care of families that may mitigate such adverse outcomes and may help bereaved family members’ adaptively cope over time.