End of life in acute hospital setting-A systematic review of families' experience of spiritual care.

Aims And Objectives: To systematically review qualitative studies exploring families' experiences of spiritual care at the end of life in acute hospital settings.

Background: Although there is a widespread belief that the consideration of spiritual and religious needs is outdated in the context of secularism, from a practical perspective patients and families appear to benefit from spiritual support at the end of life.

Methods: Six key databases, CINAHL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Global Health Library, Web of Science and Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA), were searched, and three reviewers independently extracted the data and coded them into themes and subthemes.