Palliative care: economic challenges for researchers

The economic challenges for researchers in palliative care is an emerging and challenging topic. Knowing where, how and how much is spent is fundamental for palliative care (PC) provision to be increasingly efficient and with lower costs. To accomplish this, there are three important factors to consider: early access to PC; specialised PC using standardised procedures and informal and home-based PC. Beyond costs, ethical aspects should always be present when this care is being provided in its different forms, locations and contexts. For those who want to study the economic challenges in PC, they need to comprehend the complexity of them, since they will always come from a careful articulation between ethics, the person´s needs, the cost of the care and who these costs are charged to.