ReviewBMJ supportive & palliative care2014
Diagnosing dying: an integrative literature review.
Review in BMJ supportive & palliative care, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed.
- Trial
- Evaluating palliative care case conferences in primary care for patients with advanced non-malignant chronic conditions: a cluster-randomised controlled trial (KOPAL).Age and ageing · 2024Trial
- Abdominal CT findings on the day of death in patients with solid organ malignancies.Abdominal radiology (New York) · 2026Article
- Dying as a 'normal', 'ordinary' or 'natural' process in palliative care: a systematic scoping review and narrative synthesis.BMC palliative care · 2026Article
- 'Early planning makes for a good death': residential aged care nurses' views on caring for those in the last months of life.BMC nursing · 2025Article
- Nursing contribution to end-of-life care decision-making in patients with neurological diseases on an acute hospital ward: documentation of signs and symptoms.BMC nursing · 2025Article
- Transition to end-of-life care in patients with neurological diseases in an acute hospital ward.BMC neurology · 2024Article
- End-of-life care in Germany between 2016 and 2020 - A repeated cross-sectional analysis of statutory health insurance data.BMC palliative care · 2024Article
- Article
- Developing and testing inter-rater reliability of a data collection tool for patient health records on end-of-life care of neurological patients in an acute hospital ward.Nursing open · 2023Article
- Article
- Creating virtual communities of practice for ambulance paramedics: a qualitative evaluation of the use of Project ECHO in end-of-life care.British paramedic journal · 2022Article
- Structured implementation of the Supportive and Palliative Care Indicators Tool in general practice - A prospective interventional study with follow-up.BMC palliative care · 2022Review
- Meanings and Experiences of End-of-Life Patients and Their Family Caregivers in Hospital-to-Home Transitions: A Constructivist Grounded Theory Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Article
- Quality of end-of-life care in general practice - a pre-post comparison of a two-tiered intervention.BMC primary care · 2022Article
- Report of the Lancet Commission on the Value of Death: bringing death back into life.Lancet (London, England) · 2022Review
- Bereaved Parent Perspectives on End-of-Life Conversations in Pediatric Oncology.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Longitudinal studies on cohesion in a military context - A systematic review.Military psychology : the official journal of the Division of Military Psychology, American Psychological Association · 2022Review
- Challenges and facilitators in delivering optimal care at the End of Life for older patients: a scoping review on the clinicians' perspective.Aging clinical and experimental research · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTo ensure patients and families receive appropriate end-of-life care pathways and guidelines aim to inform clinical decision making. Ensuring appropriate outcomes through the use of these decision aids is dependent on timely use. Diagnosing dying is a complex clinical decision, and most of the available practice checklists relate to cancer. There is a need to review evidence to establish diagnostic indicators that death is imminent on the basis of need rather than a cancer diagnosis.
aimTo examine the evidence as to how patients are judged by clinicians as being in the final hours or days of life.
designIntegrative literature review. DATA SOURCES: Five electronic databases (2001-2011): Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) on The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO and CINAHL. The search yielded a total of 576 hits, 331 titles and abstracts were screened, 42 papers were retrieved and reviewed and 23 articles were included.
resultsAnalysis reveals an overarching theme of uncertainty in diagnosing dying and two subthemes: (1) 'characteristics of dying' involve dying trajectories that incorporate physical, social, spiritual and psychological decline towards death; (2) 'treatment orientation' where decision making related to diagnosing dying may remain focused towards biomedical interventions rather than systematic planning for end-of-life care.
conclusionsThe findings of this review support the explicit recognition of 'uncertainty in diagnosing dying' and the need to work with and within this concept. Clinical decision making needs to allow for recovery where that potential exists, but equally there is the need to avoid futile interventions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.