Table 1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria:

• Articles containing well-defined bereavement interventions offered by regular HCPs to parents of children who have died or those children in the phase of receiving palliative care.

• Interventions aimed at consoling intense feelings of grief during the end-of-life phase or after the loss of a child. Bereavement care may also occur before the death of the child, for example from the moment the condition of the child is deteriorating and death is imminent.

• Studies must address interventions defined as: Intentional acts performed for, with, or on behalf of, a parent or parents. An intervention must consist of well-defined, concrete proceedings. This means it can be replicated by other HCPs and is supported by instructions, a manual, training, a program or other supporting documents. Our definition is based upon the definition of interventions used by the World Health Organization [33].

• Studies must address regular HCPs defined as: All types of health care professionals who primarily provide care and/or treatment and, therefore, do not specialise in bereavement care.

• Research in the field of paediatrics and neonatology.

• Articles published in a peer reviewed journal.

• Studies published in English.

Exclusion criteria:

• Review articles.

• Articles published before 1998.

• Articles containing interventions that focus on complex grief and complex bereavement care.

• Articles which solely include prenatal death and stillbirth, defined as: No signs of life at or after 28 weeks’ gestation. No occurrence of circulation outside of the uterus.