Bridging the gap and developing a home-based palliative care model for cancer patients

Early integration of palliative care into home health care services is essential for cancer patients to improve their Quality of Life and reduce their health care costs. Thus, this study aimed to develop a home-based palliative care model for adult cancer patients in Iran.

This is a health policy and systems research based on the World Health Organization guide. It consists of four phases; an integrative review, a qualitative study through individual semi-structured interviews (n = 37), and one focus group interview (n = 8), integrating these results in the third phase and generating model indicators. In the last phase, the evaluation of the importance of the indicators and the validation of the model were carried out during four classic Delphi rounds.

Barriers to home-based palliative care were extracted from the first phase, and then 22 categories in eight pillars emerged from the qualitative phase. The indicators created for the model from two phases were integrated in the third phase (n = 118). After the four-round of the Delphi, a conceptual model for home-based palliative care in cancer patients, including 92 indicators within eight pillars was created.

Although this model was designed for our society, it can be utilized as a useful guide in other similar societies to design practical models and innovative programs to provide home-based palliative care in cancer patients. The application of the model in predicting different outcomes should be investigated in future trials.