Development of a Guide to Multidimensional Needs Assessment in the Palliative Care Initial Encounter (MAP).

Context: Ensuring patient-centered palliative care requires a comprehensive assessment of needs beginning in the initial encounter. However, there is no generally accepted guide for carrying out this multidimensional needs assessment as a first step in palliative intervention.

Objectives: To develop an expert panel-endorsed interview guide that would enable proactive and systematic Multidimensional needs Assessment in the Palliative care initial encounter (MAP).

Proactive and systematic multidimensional needs assessment in patients with advanced cancer approaching palliative care: a study protocol.

Introduction: The benefits of palliative care rely on how healthcare professionals assess patients' needs in the initial encounter/s; crucial to the design of a personalised therapeutic plan. However, there is currently no evidence-based guideline to perform this needs assessment. We aim to design and evaluate a proactive and systematic method for the needs assessment using quality guidelines for developing complex interventions.

Definition of compassion in healthcare: a systematic literature review.

Aim: To reflect on the definition of compassion and analyse the concepts encompassed by the term.

Background: A large number of authors have defined compassion, with certain nuances that differ from case to case. This raises the need for specificity in the definition of the term.

Barriers to the development of palliative care in Western Europe.

Unlabelled: The Eurobarometer Survey of the EAPC Task Force on the Development of Palliative Care in Europe is part of a programme of work to produce comprehensive information on the provision of palliative care across Europe.

Aim: To identify barriers to the development of palliative care in Western Europe.

Method: A qualitative survey was undertaken amongst boards of national associations, eliciting opinions on opportunities for, and barriers to, palliative care development.

Barriers to the development of palliative care in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

During the years of communist rule in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), there were few significant palliative care developments. Since the political changes of the 1990s, however, there has been a steady development of palliative care services in this region. In 2005, the European Association for Palliative Care Task Force for the Development of Palliative Care in Europe undertook a qualitative survey among boards of national associations to identify barriers to the development of palliative care in CEE and CIS.