End-of-life doulas: international reflections on a transnational movement

Krawczyk, M. , Clare, E., Collins, E., Farr, S., Johnson, E., Mallmes, J., Mallon, A., Oberle, K. and Rigal, J. (2023) End-of-life doulas: international reflections on a transnational movement. Palliative Care and Social Practice, 17, p. 26323524231186826. (doi: 10.1177/26323524231186826)

Abstract

This review article summarizes the findings from the first virtual International End-of-Life Doula Symposium, held over 3 days on 25–27 April 2022. More than 40 people attended from seven countries, predominantly from Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, and they were primarily experienced practitioners. In this article, we focus on participants’ topics of conversations and experiences that were relevant across international boundaries, organized through the symposium themes of developments, disruptions, dilemmas and directions. All authors took de-identified handwritten notes across the 3 days of discussion, as well as reflexive notes about our own thoughts and perspectives on the topics discussed. We then collated our notes and abductively focussed our analysis on topics that generated significant conversation and/or came up repeatedly within the overall symposium themes, as well as trying to capture any unexpected issues and perspectives. We identify and summarize a wide range of interests and concerns within the development of the end-of-life doula (EOLD) role. We provide a model for integration pathways within existing health care systems, as well as an innovative conceptual framework synthesizing key intersecting developmental issues that are relevant across regional and national boundaries. The symposium was the first opportunity for EOLDs to collectively discuss their work and interests within an international context. Our findings indicate that there are fundamentally similar developmental issues across countries, along with some variations. As the first international event of its kind, our ‘state of the field’ summary review of the symposium holds significant insights relevant to both national and international contexts, and to a diversity of stakeholders interested in the development of this new care role and emerging transnational movement.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: The authors disclosed receipt of financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article through an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (project no. 316646).
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Krawczyk, Dr Marian

Creator Roles

Krawczyk, M.: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review and editing

• Authors: Krawczyk, M., Clare, E., Collins, E., Farr, S., Johnson, E., Mallmes, J., Mallon, A., Oberle, K., and Rigal, J.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social & Environmental Sustainability
• Journal Name: Palliative Care and Social Practice
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• ISSN: 2632-3524
• ISSN (Online): 2632-3524
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Palliative Care and Social Practice 17: 26323524231186826
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License