ArticleBMC palliative care2024
A 'good death' needs good cooperation with health care professionals - a qualitative focus group study with seniors, physicians and nurses in Germany.
Article in BMC palliative care, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 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
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Preparing for home death in rural areas - the experience of family caregivers providing palliative cancer care.International journal of circumpolar health · 2025Article
- Perception of futile care and the reasons behind providing it for the patients at end-of-life stages from the care providers' perspective.Philosophy, ethics, and humanities in medicine : PEHM · 2025Article
- Attitudes of medical doctors, nurses and paramedics towards death.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
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
Abstract
backgroundStudies investigating notions of a 'good death' tend to focus on specific medical conditions and specific groups of people. Therefore, their results are often poorly comparable, making it difficult to anticipate potential points of conflict in practice. Consequently, the study explores how to achieve a good death from the perspective and experience of physicians, nursing staff, and seniors. The aim of this study is to identify comparable notions of a good death among the participants and to determine factors that may promote or prevent a good death, including those that may lead to futile care.
methodsThe study used a qualitative design with a total of 16 focus group discussions, 5 each with physicians and nursing staff, and 6 with seniors at least 75 years old. The group size ranged between 3 and 9 participants. Analysis was carried out using Qualitative Content Analysis.
resultsThree major aspects affect the quality of death: (1) good communication and successful cooperation, (2) avoidance of death, and (3) acceptance of death. While successful communication and acceptance of death reinforce each other, successful communication counters avoidance of death and vice versa. Acceptance and avoidance of death are in constant tension. Additionally, the role of family and loved ones has been shown to be crucial in the organization of dying (e.g. communicating the patient's wishes to health care professionals).
conclusionsCommunication and cooperation between patients and all involved caretakers determines quality of death. However, communication depends on several individual and organizational factors such as the personal level of acceptance or avoidance of death and the availability of institutionalized communication channels crossing professional and organizational boundaries. Furthermore, treatment cultures and organizational structures in hospitals and nursing homes often default towards life prolongation. This carries significant potential for problems, particularly because physicians emphasized the need to prevent hospital admissions when no further life-sustaining treatment is desired. In contrast, nurses and seniors were less aware that hospitals may not be the most suitable place for end-of-life care. This, along with the ambivalent role of nursing homes as places of death, holds potential for conflict.
trial registrationGerman Clinical Trials Register: DRKS00027076, 05/11/2021.
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.