CONTEXT: Existential and spiritual concerns in relation to palliative end-of-life care have
received increasing attention over the past decade. OBJECTIVES: To review the literature …

Over the course of a life-threatening disease, a person's suffering can increase (1, 2).
Particularly at the end of life, suffering tends to be widespread, manifesting itself at different …

Background: The prevention and relief of suffering in palliative care are critical to the well-
being and quality of life of patients and families facing life-threatening diseases. Many tools …

There is a paucity of research relating to how palliative caregivers conceptualize, identify,
and provide for spiritual and existential domains of care. Focus groups comprising …

Objective Suffering frequently occurs in the context of chronic and progressive medical
illnesses and emerges with great intensity at end‐of‐life. A review of the literature on …

Understanding the complexities of distress and knowing who is most vulnerable is
foundational to the provision of quality, palliative end-of-life care. Although prior studies …

“Existential pain” is a widely used but ill-defined concept. Therefore the aim of this study was
to let hospital chaplains (n= 173), physicians in palliative care (n= 115), and pain specialists …

Studies of patients who are terminally ill consistently identify strong associations between
“sense of burden to others” and marked end-of-life distress. However, little research has …

Background and purpose: Although the relief of psycho-existential or spiritual suffering is
one of the most important roles of palliative care clinicians, lack of an accepted conceptual …

Understanding the factors that underlie existential suffering at the end of life has become the
focus of a growing body of research. A number of studies have concluded that existential …