Generalist palliative care in hospital – Cultural and organisational interactions. Results of a mixed-methods study

Background:It can be challenging to provide generalist palliative care in hospitals, owing to difficulties in integrating disease-oriented treatment with palliative care and the influences of cultural and organisational conditions. However, knowledge on the interactions that occur is sparse.Aim:To investigate the interactions between organisation and culture as conditions for integrated palliative care in hospital and, if possible, to suggest workable solutions for the provision of generalist palliative care.Design:A convergent parallel mixed-methods design was chosen using two independent studies: a quantitative study, in which three independent datasets were triangulated to study the organisation and evaluation of generalist palliative care, and a qualitative, ethnographic study exploring the culture of generalist palliative nursing care in medical departments.Setting/participants:A Danish regional hospital with 29 department managements and one hospital management.Results:Two overall themes emerged: (1...