What is most important for you to achieve?: an analysis of patient responses when receiving palliative care consultation.

Background: Hospitalized patients with a wide range of serious, but not necessarily terminal illnesses are now receiving palliative care consultations. The purpose of this report is to describe what palliative care patients say is "most important to achieve" at the time of initial consultation.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective descriptive content analysis of patient responses to the question "What is most important for you to achieve?" recorded at the time of initial inpatient palliative care consultation.