Implementation Science Strategies for Advancing Caregiver-Focused Palliative Care Interventions

Family caregivers of individuals with serious illness face profound emotional, existential, and logistical challenges across the illness trajectory. Despite their central role in care delivery, caregivers often receive limited support, contributing to distress, burden, and diminished quality of life. Although a growing body of evidence supports psychosocial and caregiver-focused palliative care interventions, many remain underutilized in clinical practice due to persistent implementation barriers.

We will explore strategies to translate evidence-informed, family-inclusive palliative care interventions into real-world settings. Drawing on recent studies of group-based interventions, meaning-making therapies, and transitional palliative care models, the panel will examine how implementation science can be leveraged to address gaps in caregiver support. The session will highlight the design, delivery, and dissemination of scalable interventions that promote caregiver well-being and resilience.

Guided by a model of caregiver partnerships in healthcare delivery, the session will present findings from interventions that have demonstrated feasibility and acceptability across diverse populations. These include remotely delivered programs focused on mindfulness, gratitude, and meaning making; transitional care models that support caregivers during high-risk periods such as hospital discharge; and therapies that address existential distress and promote resilience. Evidence from randomized controlled trials and pilot studies will be used to illustrate lessons learned.

We will discuss broader implications of integrating caregiver-focused interventions into routine palliative care. Attendees will be invited to engage in interactive discussions around implementation strategies, with a focus on designing research that is inclusive, pragmatic, and responsive to caregivers' needs.

Ultimately, this session aims to support palliative care researchers and clinicians in initiating and conducting pragmatic clinical trials, offering practical tools and frameworks to move from research into scalable, practice-integrated programs of care. By centering caregivers in intervention design and delivery and applying rigorous implementation science methods, the field can advance toward more equitable, effective, and compassionate models of care.