Needs of Informal Caregivers of Patients Seeking Assisted Suicide or Euthanasia: A Narrative Review

Informal caregivers are individuals who provide unpaid practical, emotional and physical support to a person who is dependent on such care. In the context of Assisted Dying, these roles acquire additional characteristics, because caregivers must navigate not only illness and approaching death but also a deliberate and legally regulated process of dying. To address this, the aim of the narrative review is to synthesize the available evidence on how informal caregivers and relatives experience assisted dying across the trajectory from the patient's request or expressed wish to bereavement. Therefore, 11 empirical studies were included, selected through electronic searches in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The findings were organized according to three phases of the assisted-dying trajectory: pre-MAiD, during MAiD, and post-MAiD. Within each phase, emotional, relational, communicative, practical, ethical, legal, institutional, and bereavement-related experiences were identified and considered together rather than treated as separate themes. Informal caregivers' needs should be understood as longitudinal and relational rather than event-specific. The findings also revealed that informal caregivers' experiences depended on whether their needs were met or unmet. These needs should not be confined to a single phase. Keywords: Informal caregivers, Assisted Dying, bereavement, narrative review, pre-MAiD, during MAiD, post-MAiD.