Table 1 Summary of main findings from national reviews
Country | Date range | # of papers | Common focus | Common study groups | Common methodology | Missing research | Other observations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ireland (McIlfatrick and Murphy, 2013) | 2002–2012 | 151 | Specific groups Services and settings Symptom management | Children Intellectual disability Malignant disease | Quantitative/Qualitative Mixed methods Systematic reviews Small sample, needs based | Public health Policy research | Upward trend in publication numbers |
Scotland (Finucane et al., 2018) | 2006–2015 | 308 | Services and settings Experiences and/or needs Physical symptoms | Patients only Mixed groups HCPs only | Descriptive studies | E-health Health economics Out-of-hours Public health | Nearly half of all papers described unfunded research or did not acknowledge a funder |
Sweden (Henoch et al., 2016) | 2007–2012 | 263 | Symptom assessment and management Experiences of illness Care planning | – | Small sample, cross sectional Qualitative | Ethnic minorities Non-verbally communicative people Children | Non-cancer populations and utilisation of population-based register studies identified as new features |
China (Wang and Chan, 2015) | 1991–2014 | 107 | Attitudes to death Service utilisation Physical symptoms | In/ out -patients Older adults Care staff Informal caregivers | – | – | Research undertaken by healthcare professionals |
South Asia (Singh & Hardin 2015) | 1980–2013 | 16 | Service description Intervention outcomes | Home care Care centre Hospital Outpatients | Descriptive Service evaluation (no (quasi) experimental designs) | Cultural context of death and dying for patients and families | Lack of data beyond India Urgent need for research investment |