Complex contradictions in conceptualisations of 'dignity' in palliative care

Internationally, increasing attention is being paid to understanding patient experiences of health care. Within palliative care, the Views of Informal Carers - Evaluation of Services (VOICES) questionnaire is commonly used for this purpose. Among its objectives is to ask family members if their relatives were treated with dignity at the end of life. This is regarded as useful for understanding the quality of the health care received.

To highlight the differences between family members' reports of dignity in the care provided to their relatives at the end of life, as reported in the VOICES questionnaire, and their narratives about the care their relatives received.

A total of 21 cognitive interviews were conducted during a New Zealand pilot of the VOICES questionnaire.

Discrepancies between ratings of dignity and the lived experience of care suggest that lay understandings of dignity may not be congruent with that of health care providers.

Bereaved family members' self-reports of dignity in end-of-life care captured using survey methods alone are inadequate to understand the complex ways in which individuals conceptualise and experience dignity within a health care context. The authors advocate consideration of multiple, complementary approaches to gathering consumer experiences of end-of-life care, as well as research which enables service users to interrogate what dignity in care means in an end-of-life context.