ArticlePalliative medicine2023
What makes the palliative care initial encounter meaningful? A descriptive study with patients with cancer, family carers and palliative care professionals.
Article in Palliative medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Palliative care utilisation globally by cancer patients: systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ supportive & palliative care · 2025Pooled it
- Psychometric properties of the Person-Centered Palliative Care Nursing Instrument (PPCNI): validity and reliability study.BMC palliative care · 2026Article
- Family perceptions of the transition from hospital to home palliative care: a phenomenological study.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2025Article
- Article
- Qualitative evaluation of motives for acceptance or refusal of early palliative care in patients included in early-phase clinical trials in a French comprehensive cancer center: the PALPHA study.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2024Article
- Patient and caregiver questions and clinician responses during initial outpatient neuropalliative care appointments.PEC innovation · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe palliative care initial encounter can have a positive impact on the quality of life of patients and family carers if it proves to be a meaningful experience. A better understanding of what makes the encounter meaningful would reinforce the provision of person-centred, quality palliative care.
aimTo explore the expectations that patients with cancer, family carers and palliative care professionals have of this initial encounter.
designQualitative descriptive study with content analysis of transcripts from 60 semi-structured interviews. SETTING/
participantsTwenty patients with cancer, 20 family carers and 20 palliative care professionals from 10 institutions across Spain.
resultsFour themes were developed from the analysis of interviews: (1) the initial encounter as an opportunity to understand what palliative care entails; (2) individualised care; (3) professional commitment to the patient and family carers: present and future; and (4) acknowledgement.
conclusionThe initial encounter becomes meaningful when it facilitates a shared understanding of what palliative care entails and acknowledgement of the needs and/or roles of patients with cancer, family carers and professionals. Further studies are required to explore how a perception of acknowledgement may best be fostered in the initial encounter.
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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.