Palliative, Hospice and End-of-Life Care: Current Progress and Future Needs

Dear Colleagues,

The landscape of palliative and end-of-life care has changed noticeably in the past decade due to changes in demographics, medical technology and disease pattern, which have resulted in a huge number of people who live with chronic progressive conditions. Decisions about medical treatments have become complex, as the survival rate is no longer being seen as the sole care outcome and the burdens and benefits brought by the treatments are subject to interpretation. This gives rise to growing concerns over what is meant by “good death”, and thus how to define good care near the end of life.

The increasing number of people with palliative care needs has also led to an unprecedented dependence on carer support for high-quality care. There is a growing realization that the provision of palliative care is a vital element to meet the complex needs of these patients and their family including various distressing symptoms, as well as social and psycho-spiritual concerns from the time of diagnosis until the last phase of life, and thereby to optimize their quality of life.

This Special Issue is intended to inform policy, education and practice for improving palliative, hospice and end-of-life care. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to, identifying personal, socio-cultural, environmental and legal factors influencing the quality of end-of-life care, perspectives or experiences of various stakeholders towards palliative and end-of-life care, the palliative care needs of patients and family members, the development and testing of innovative interventions in supporting caregiving in palliative care or promoting palliative care and optimizing the quality of life of people with life-limiting conditions and their family members. Authors are invited to submit research papers (quantitative, qualitative, case studies or mixed-methods studies), concept analysis papers, quality improvement papers and review papers.

Dr. Carlos Laranjeira
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nursing Reports is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• end of life
• palliative care
• death
• dying
• bereavement
• hospice
• home-based palliative care
• caregivers
• good death
• psychosocial-spiritual issues
• pain and symptom management
• burdens
• compassionate care
• education
• decision making
• advanced care planning
• health care directives