"I couldn't say goodbye": Thematic analysis of interviews with bereaved relatives who lost their loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Delivering serious news is usually challenging for healthcare professionals and the pandemic of COVID-19 and related restrictions brought additional challenges in this process.

Aims: To explore the experience of bereaved relatives with receiving serious news from healthcare professionals during the pandemic COVID-19.

Design: A qualitative study using thematic analysis and a codebook approach of data collected in semi-structured interviews with bereaved relatives.

Association between prognostic awareness and quality of life in patients with advanced cancer.

Purpose: Despite the current guidelines supporting open communication about serious news, the evidence about the impact of prognostic awareness on the quality of life in cancer patients is not clear. The aim of this study was to assess the association between quality of life and prognostic awareness in patients with advanced cancer.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study which involved patients (n = 129) with incurable advanced cancer (estimated by oncologist using 12-month surprise question).

Views of patients with advanced disease and their relatives on participation in palliative care research.

Background: Patients with advanced disease may not be invited to participate in research based on the assumption that participation would be too burdensome for them. The aim of this study was to explore how patients with advanced disease and their relatives evaluate their experience with research participation.

Method: This study used data from two parts of a larger project.

Prognostic awareness in advanced cancer patients and their caregivers: A longitudinal cohort study.

Objective: The aim of this study was to analyse longitudinal development of prognostic awareness in advanced cancer patients and their families.

Methods: This was a longitudinal cohort study, involving 134 adult cancer patients, 91 primary family caregivers and 21 treating oncologists. Key eligibility criterion for patients was life expectancy less than 1 year (estimated by their oncologists using the 12-month surprised question).

Optimal participation in decision-making in advanced chronic disease: perspectives of patients, relatives and physicians.

Background: Making decisions about health care issues in advanced illness is difficult and the participation of patients and relatives is essential. Most of the studies on shared decision-making focus on the interaction between patient and physician (dyadic interaction), while the role of relatives in triadic decision-making remains less explored. The aim of the study was to investigate the perceived importance of the role of the patient, the physician and the relative in the decision-making from their respective perspectives.

Patients' Autonomy at the End of Life: A Critical Review.

Context: The predominating definition of autonomy as a capacity to make an independent rational choice may not be suitable for patients in palliative care. Therefrom arises the actual need for more contextualized perspectives on autonomy to promote the quality of life and satisfaction with care of terminally ill patients.

Objectives: This review aimed to develop a theoretical structural model of autonomy at the end of life based on patients' end-of-life care preferences.