SynthesisBMJ supportive & palliative care2022
Hospice care access inequalities: a systematic review and narrative synthesis.
Synthesis in BMJ supportive & palliative care, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 87 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
87 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Loneliness among adults at the end of life: A systematic review of prevalence and correlates.Palliative medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Sociodemographic Disparities in the Use of Hospice by U.S. Nursing Home Residents: A Systematic Review.The American journal of hospice & palliative care · 2026Pooled it
- Geographic variations in place of death and palliative care utilisation in the last three months of life in high-income countries: a systematic review.BMC palliative care · 2025Pooled it
- Ethnic inequalities in palliative care prescribing in high income countries - a rapid systematic review.BMC palliative care · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Impact of a complex intervention in primary care for patients with palliative care needs in their healthcare utilization: a before-after study.Primary health care research & development · 2026Trial
- Trial
- Disparities in hospice enrollment timing and end-of-life care intensity across non-cancer diagnoses: a 10-year hospital-based cohort study.Annals of medicine · 2026Article
- Cancer and Health Inequalities.British journal of cancer · 2026Review
- Quantifying spatial accessibility to inpatient hospices in Germany.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Co-Designing a Care Coordination Intervention for People With Motor Neuron Disease: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study.JMIR research protocols · 2026Article
- Racial and Ethnic Differences in Withdrawal of Life-Sustaining Treatment and Hospice Referral in Severe Traumatic Brain Injury.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Article
- Article
- Social determinants of death anxiety in patients with advanced cancer receiving outpatient palliative care.Palliative medicine · 2026Article
- Large language models perpetuate bias in palliative care: Development and analysis of the Palliative Care Adversarial Dataset (PCAD).PLOS digital health · 2026Article
- Associations between hospital characteristics and the delivery of non-cancer palliative care: a nationwide retrospective study in Taiwan.BMC palliative care · 2026Article
- Trauma-informed palliative care: A systematic scoping review of evidence sources describing concepts relevant to an emerging field of practice.Palliative medicine · 2026Article
- Facilitators of and barriers to high-quality care at end-of-life: experiences of terminally ill patients and their relatives.BMC palliative care · 2026Article
- Temporal trends in hospice deaths and causes of death in Italy, 2011-2022: A nationwide population-based study.Palliative & supportive care · 2026Article
27 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundInequalities in access to hospice care is a source of considerable concern; white, middle-class, middle-aged patients with cancer have traditionally been over-represented in hospice populations.
objectiveTo identify from the literature the demographic characteristics of those who access hospice care more often, focusing on: diagnosis, age, gender, marital status, ethnicity, geography and socioeconomic status.
designSystematic literature review and narrative synthesis.
methodSearches of Medline, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Web of Science, Assia and Embase databases from January 1987 to end September 2019 were conducted. Inclusion criteria were peer-reviewed studies of adult patients in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, receiving inpatient, day, outpatient and community hospice care. Of the 45 937 titles retrieved, 130 met the inclusion criteria. Narrative synthesis of extracted data was conducted.
resultsAn extensive literature search demonstrates persistent inequalities in hospice care provision: patients without cancer, the oldest old, ethnic minorities and those living in rural or deprived areas are under-represented in hospice populations. The effect of gender and marital status is inconsistent. There is a limited literature concerning hospice service access for the LGBTQ+ community, homeless people and those living with HIV/AIDS, diabetes and cystic fibrosis.
conclusionBarriers of prognostic uncertainty, institutional cultures, particular needs of certain groups and lack of public awareness of hospice services remain substantial challenges to the hospice movement in ensuring equitable access for all.
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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.