ArticlePalliative medicine2026
Defining and measuring unmet palliative care needs among people with life-limiting illness: A scoping review of international evidence.
Article in Palliative medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 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
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Nurse-led tele-palliative care for symptom management and family support: A hybrid umbrella review of reviews and primary studies.Palliative & supportive care · 2026Pooled it
- Communicating in Palliative Care for Neurodegenerative Diseases: A Qualitative Study on Professional-Family Interactions.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- Multidisciplinary Palliative Care and Its Impact on Symptom Burden and Quality of Life in Advanced Cancer Patients in Ethiopia: A Pre-Post Quasi-Experimental Study.Cancer management and research · 2026Article
- Coproducing a conceptual understanding of unmet palliative care needs: stakeholder workshops using modified nominal group technique.BMC palliative care · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundQuantifying palliative care needs and whether they are met is essential for effective service planning and provision. Estimates of palliative care needs are widely reported but less is known about
aimTo investigate how unmet palliative care needs for adults with advanced life-limiting illness have been defined, measured, and reported in the evidence.
designScoping review following the Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines: protocol registered on Open Science Framework (10.17605/OSF.IO/M8DHA). DATA SOURCES: In October 2024, we searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO for quantitative and mixed-methods studies published after 2000, with backward and forward citation and manual searching of grey literature. Data on definitions, measurement and reporting of unmet needs were extracted, charted, and summarised narratively using inductive content analysis and framework synthesis.
resultsSeventy studies were included: 9 reviews and 61 primary evidence studies from 16 countries. Only 11 (16%) studies explicitly defined unmet palliative care needs. We identified three approaches to measurement of unmet palliative care needs: (1) prevalence of
conclusionsThis novel review identifies a lack of consensus in defining, measuring and reporting unmet palliative care needs. We propose three distinct approaches to conceptualising unmet palliative care needs and outline their strengths and limitations. Practical guidance on their use is provided to support researchers, clinicians, and policymakers in selecting appropriate approaches for assessment and reporting.
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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.