Notion of a good death for patients with cancer: a qualitative systematic review protocol

Promoting the quality of death and achieving a good death is one of the most important goals of palliative care in cancer care. Few studies synthesised views of patients with cancer on the notion of a good death and its associated factors. By eliciting the core elements of a good death, the review aims to identify potential unmet needs of patients with cancer and reveal their common values and care preferences at the end of life. The review also has the potential to inform the development of guidelines for clinical care and shared decision-making in palliative care practice.

A qualitative systematic review will be conducted and reported according to the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology for systematic review and synthesis of qualitative data and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Comprehensive search will be performed in six English and two Chinese databases from inception to 30 April 2022 to retrieve relevant qualitative articles focusing on the notion of a good death from the perspective of patients with cancer. Data will be extracted using the JBI standardised data extraction tool for qualitative research. The quality of the included studies will be critically appraised using the JBI Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument. Data extraction and quality appraisal will be conducted by two reviewers independently. A meta-aggregative approach and narrative summary will be used to synthesise data.

Ethical approval is not needed. We will disseminate the findings through international conferences related to cancer care or palliative care. The final review will be submitted and published in a peer-reviewed journal.

CRD42021266629.