Effectiveness of complex interventions focused on quality-of-life assessment to improve palliative care patients’ outcomes: A systematic review

Background:One of the most crucial palliative care challenges is in determining how patient’ needs are defined and assessed. Assessing quality of life has been defined as a priority in palliative care, and it has become a central concept in palliative care practice.Aim:To determine to what extent interventions focused on measuring quality of life in palliative care practice are effective in improving outcomes in palliative care patients.Design:Systematic review according to the recommendations of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement and hand searches.Data sources:MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and the Cochrane Library were searched for articles published until June 2012, and through hand searching from references lists of included articles. Only studies that included adult palliative care patients, in any palliative care clinical practice setting of care, and with an experimental, quasi-experimental, or observational analytical study design were eli...