Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2019 Jun 29;7(3):83.
doi: 10.3390/healthcare7030083.

End-of-Life Care Challenges from Staff Viewpoints in Emergency Departments: Systematic Review

Ali J Alqahtani  1 , Geoffrey Mitchell  2
Affiliations
Review

End-of-Life Care Challenges from Staff Viewpoints in Emergency Departments: Systematic Review

Ali J Alqahtani et al. Healthcare (Basel). .

Abstract

The hospital emergency department (ED) is the place where people most commonly seek urgent care. The initial diagnosis of an end-of-life (EOL) condition may occur in the ED. In this review we described the challenges; from the staff members' perspectives, to safe, appropriate, and high quality end-of-life care (EOLC) for people who are diagnosed with non-malignant diseases who present to ED settings internationally. We conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature. PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, Medline, and Web of Science were searched from 2007 to 2017. In this review the challenges in providing quality EOLC from staff viewpoints, for EOL people who are diagnosed with non-malignant progressive diseases in ED settings, were classified into eight themes: (1) EOLC education and training, (2) ED design, (3) Lack of family support, (4) Work Load, (5) ED staff communication and decision making, (6) EOLC quality in ED, (7) resource availability (time, space, appropriate interdisciplinary personnel) and (8) integrating palliative care (PC) in ED. The formulation of EOLC using this review result may help to improve the quality of life for dying people by providing ED staff with clear guidelines that can guide them in their daily practice.

Keywords: emergency department; end-of-life care; palliative care; staff view; terminal care.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Literature search: screening, inclusion and exclusion.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Forero R., McDonnell G., Gallego B., McCarthy S., Mohsin M., Shanley C., Formby F., Hillman K. A Literature Review on Care at the End-of-Life in the Emergency Department. Emerg. Med. Int. 2012;2012:486516. doi: 10.1155/2012/486516. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kanzaria H.K., Probst M.A., Hsia R.Y. Emergency Department Death Rates Dropped by Nearly 50 Percent, 1997–2011. Health Aff. 2016;35:1303–1308. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2015.1394. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Beckstrand R.L., Giles V.C., Luthy K.E., Callister L.C., Heaston S. The last frontier: Rural emergency nurses’ perceptions of end-of-life care obstacles. J. Emerg. Nurs. 2012;38:e15–e25. doi: 10.1016/j.jen.2012.01.003. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Lawson B.J., Burge F.I., McIntyre P., Field S., Maxwell D. Palliative care patients in the emergency department. J. Palliat. Care. 2008;24:247–255. doi: 10.1177/082585970802400404. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bailey C.J., Murphy R., Porock D. Dying cases in emergency places: Caring for the dying in emergency departments. Soc. Sci. Med. 2011;73:1371–1377. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.07.036. - DOI - PubMed