Where do Prevention and Palliative Care Meet? A Systematic Literature Study on the Interfaces of two Different Health Care Sectors

Abstract

The objective of this study was to elaborate aspects of prevention in palliative care on the basis of available literature sources. We analyzed 223 articles from 145 different journals covering the period from April 2001 to April 2006. Subject-related categories were derived from the contents of these articles. Each article was subsequently allocated to one of the categories. In addition, we performed a free search in 6 selected text books on palliative care. The results revealed that the main textual emphasis had been placed on pain therapy and controlling the symptoms of bone metastasis. Altogether, the focus was on measures of tertiary prevention, whereas measures of primary prevention and preventive medicine received little attention. Therefore, the accentuation of the preventive aspect in the World Health Organization definition of palliative care is only rudimentarily reflected in the literature.