“There is little agreement about what constitutes good death or successful dying. The authors conducted a literature search for published, English-language, peer-reviewed reports of qualitative and quantitative studies that provided a definition of a good death… We identified 11 core themes of good death: preferences for a specific dying process, pain-free status, religiosity/spiritualty [sic], emotional well-being, life completion, treatment preferences, dignity, family, quality of life, relationship with HCP [healthcare provider], and other. The top three themes across all stakeholder groups were preferences for dying process (94% of reports), pain-free status (81%), and emotional well-being (64%)… Family perspectives included life completion (80%), quality of life (70%), dignity (70%), and presence of family (70%)… In contrast, religiosity/spirituality was reported somewhat more often in patient perspectives (65%) than in family perspectives (50%).”

Apr. 24, 2016