Death doulas as supportive companions in end-of-life care: A scoping review SAGE Palliative Medicine & Chronic Care

This episode features Si Qi Yoong (National University of Singapore, Singapore).

Death doula is a relatively new role found in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. Death doulas provide support to the dying and their families. There is uncertainty about its roles, scope of practice, regulation and position within the healthcare system.

This review clarifies the uncertainty of the death doula movement in terms of its roles, impacts of care and regulation issues. This review identifies five common roles death doulas undertake when providing non-clinical care to support the dying and their families. The review highlights a lack of experimental research to examine the actual effects of death doulas among the dying and their families and echoes a paucity of professional regulations over its training process and practice.

Death doulas could be a valuable addition to existing end-of-life care services by alleviating the healthcare system’s time and resource constraints. A need exists for future research to investigate its actual effect among the dying and their families. The lack of regulation of death doulas may imply a lack of acknowledgement of this role, calling for more efforts from diverse stakeholders. A better understanding of this newly emerged care model could pave the way for its recognition and integration into existing healthcare and social care systems.