Jan 22, 2018
This episode features Dr. Mariona
Guerrero (Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona,
Spain). She reports on her systematic review which aimed
to identify meaning in life interventions implemented in
patients with advanced disease and to describe their context,
mechanisms and outcomes.
The study was a Systematic review of four electronic databases, and
involved a realist synthesis of meaning in life interventions using
criteria from the Realist And Meta-narrative
Evidence Syntheses: Evolving Standards project.
A total of 12 articles were included in the systematic review,
corresponding to nine different interventions. Analysis of context,
mechanisms and outcomes configurations showed that a
core component of all the interventions was the interpersonal
encounter between patient and therapist, in which sources of
meaning were explored and a sense of connectedness was
re-established. Meaning in life interventions were associated
with clinical benefits on measures of purpose-in-life, quality of
life, spiritual well-being, self-efficacy, optimism, distress,
hopelessness, anxiety, depression and wish to hasten
death. This review provides an explanatory model of the
contextual factors and mechanisms that may be involved in promoting
meaning in life. These approaches could provide useful tools
for relieving existential suffering at the end of life.
Full paper available from: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0269216316685235
If you would like to record a podcast about your published (or
accepted) Palliative Medicine paper, please contact Dr Amara Nwosu:
anwosu@liverpool.ac.uk