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Residential and long-term care centers are living environments that provide support not only for residents, but also for their loved ones, throughout the resident’s stay. This support should continue in the post-death period, as the family grieves. Bereavement can have a significant impact on families’ quality of life, such as the development of complex persistent grief, which requires healthcare professionals, including nurses, to support families through this important transition. Current bereavement follow-up practices in long-term care centers are rather limited, consisting mainly of commemorative gestures. The aim of this study is to explore the state of knowledge related to nursing practices in grief support for families in long-term care centers. A literature review was conducted according to the principles of a structured narrative review. A total of 21 articles were selected according to the established selection criteria. A thematic analysis of the articles identified three main themes: bereavement care, the nurse’s role and bereavement care nursing interventions. Bereavement follow-up comprises five components: 1) acknowledgement of death, 2) transmission of bereavement information, 3) assessment of bereavement, 4) intervention in bereavement and 5) refer to specialized resources as needed. The nurse is described as a professional with a central role in bereavement follow-up, because of the privileged relationship she develops with families and the interpersonal and communication skills she possesses. The literature does, however, recognize a need for training nurses in bereavement. Nursing interventions for bereavement follow-up could be grouped into four types: 1) an interdisciplinary bereavement follow-up meeting, 2) a strength-oriented therapeutic family conversation, 3) a written bereavement adjustment tool and 4) an individual bereavement follow-up meeting. This study provides an in-depth understanding of bereavement follow-up, as well as interventions that can be adapted to the residential context. These could help guide nurses’ practice in this care setting.

Keywords: Infirmière, Nursing, grief support, Suivi de deuil, Famille, families, CHSLD, long-term care, Revue narrative structurée, narrative review

Following her doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne on the application of Pierre Bourdieu’s thought to Educational Sciences, and her involvement in establishing the communication of organizations as a research orientation in the Communication Sciences in France, Béatrice Galinon-Mélénec anchored her research in Communication Anthropology. This shift led her to found the Homme-trace (Human-Trace) paradigm. In this discussion, Béatrice Galinon-Mélénec looks back on her career path and explains how it lead her to an anthroposémiotique de la trace (human communication of the trace) based on an anthropological and co-constructivist perspective, a proposal offering a reading of signs seen as consequences of interactions between the “body-trace” and the “reality-trace”. It also clarifies its definition of the trace as a consequence, as well as one of indication, brand and footprint in relation to the trace. Finally, the researcher explains her vision of the research and investigation methods capable of capturing the complexity of reality through the “trace-consequences” that are variously accessible to humans.

The greater part of this issue brings together a collection of sixty two texts, most of them unpublished, presented and annotated by Véronique Robert.