SynthesisBMJ open2020
How effective is undergraduate palliative care teaching for medical students? A systematic literature review.
Synthesis in BMJ open, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 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
10 citing papers in PubMed, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- Confirming and notifying death: blended learning acceptability among medical students, a pilot mixed-methods study.Medical education online · 2026Article
- Effects of Palliative Care Education on Healthcare Professional Students: An Umbrella Review.Medical science educator · 2026Review
- Growing palliative and end-of-life care research in the United Kingdom: Findings from a mixed methods survey.PloS one · 2026Article
- Towards quality indicators in palliative care education: An umbrella review.Palliative care and social practice · 2026Review
- Is Basic Training in Palliative Care Sufficient to Guarantee the Improvement of Knowledge and Skills in This Area?-A Medical Knowledge Assessment Study.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Undergraduate palliative care education in Brazil: a qualitative study on the challenges for clinical teachers.BMJ open · 2025Article
- Palliative care training in medical undergraduate education: a survey among the faculty.BMC palliative care · 2024Article
- Medical students' knowledge on palliative care - a survey of teaching in Finland.MedEdPublish (2016) · 2024Article
- Assessing Medical Students' Confidence towards Provision of Palliative Care: A Cross-Sectional Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Spiralled Palliative Care Curriculum Aligned with International Guidelines Improves Self-Efficacy but Not Attitudes: Education Intervention Study.Advances in medical education and practice · 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
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Palliative care is central to the role of all clinical doctors. There is variability in the amount and type of teaching about palliative care at undergraduate level. Time allocated for such teaching within the undergraduate medical curricula remains scarce. Given this, the effectiveness of palliative care teaching needs to be known.
objectivesTo evaluate the effectiveness of palliative care teaching for undergraduate medical students.
designA systematic review was prepared according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidance. Screening, data extraction and quality assessment (mixed methods and Cochrane risk of bias tool) were performed in duplicate. DATA SOURCES: Embase, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Web of Science, ClinicalTrials.gov, Cochrane and grey literature in August 2019. Studies evaluating palliative care teaching interventions with medical students were included.
results1446 titles/abstracts and 122 full-text articles were screened. 19 studies were included with 3253 participants. 17 of the varied methods palliative care teaching interventions improved knowledge outcomes. The effect of teaching on clinical practice and patient outcomes was not evaluated in any study.
conclusionsThe majority of palliative care teaching interventions reviewed improved knowledge of medical students. The studies did not show one type of teaching method to be better than others, and thus no 'best way' to provide teaching about palliative care was identified. High quality, comparative research is needed to further understand effectiveness of palliative care teaching on patient care/clinical practice/outcomes in the short-term and longer-term. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42018115257.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.