Abstract
Background: Those experiencing socioeconomic deprivation have poorer quality of health throughout their life course which can result in poorer quality of death - with decreased access to palliative care services, greater use of acute care, and reduced access to preferred place of care compared with patients from less deprived populations.
Aim: To summarise the current global evidence from developed countries on end-of-life experience for those living with socio-economic deprivation.
Design: Integrative review in accordance with PRISMA. A thorough search of major databases from 2010-2020, using clear definitions of end-of-life care and well-established proxy indicators of socio-economic deprivation. Empirical research describing experience of adult patients in the last year of life care were included.
Results: Forty studies were included from a total of 3508 after screening and selection. These were deemed to be of high quality; from a wide range of countries with varying healthcare systems; and encompassed all palliative care settings for patients with malignant and non-malignant diagnoses. Three global themes were identified: 1) multi-dimensional symptom burden, 2) preferences and planning and 3) health and social care interactions at the end of life.
Conclusions: Current models of healthcare services are not meeting the needs of those experiencing socioeconomic deprivation at the end-of-life. Further work is needed to understand the disparity in care, particularly around ensuring patients voices are heard and can influence service development and delivery.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 193 |
| Number of pages | 25 |
| Journal | BMC Palliative Care |
| Volume | 21 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 5 Nov 2022 |
Keywords
- Palliative care
- Terminal care
- Socioeconomic factors
- Social class
- Delivery of health care
- Integrative review
Access to Document
- Bowers_2022_BMC-PC_End-of-life_CC
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