Understanding, supporting emotional impact of harmful events

Editor's Note

A multidisciplinary group gathered at an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality conference to develop a research agenda that includes immediately actionable and long-term research strategies to mitigate the emotional toll of harmful medical events on patients and families.

The group reached consensus on four research priorities:

• Establish patient-centered language for describing harm.
• Describe the epidemiology (ie, how often and in what ways) of emotional harm for patients and families.
• Determine how to make emotional harm and long-term impacts evident to healthcare organizations and society.
• Develop and implement best practices for emotional support of harmed patients and families.

The group also created strategies for overcoming research barriers and actionable approaches to better support harmed patients and families while research is ongoing.