Brief report: A cross‐sectional survey of provider engagement with family members following patient drug overdose death

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: To describe provider preparedness and experiences engaging families after a patient overdose death. METHODS: We used descriptive statistics to summarize responses to a national survey of interdisciplinary providers. RESULTS: Participants (n = 524; 47,937 invited) agreed that providers should communicate with a patient's family after an overdose death (78.2% agreed), yet few felt very well prepared to do so (22.6%). DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Providers inconsistently contacted families despite believing these interactions are opportunities to improve family and provider coping. SCIENTIFIC SIGNIFICANCE: There is a potential need for interventions addressing this discrepancy between providers' desired behaviors and practice contacting families following a patient death.