gms | German Medical Science

Background and Purpose: Many patients with life-limiting cancer illness are cared for by nurses without specialist knowledge in palliative end-of-life cancer care. Cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide, and hence, at some point, almost every nurse will be taking care of patients with a cancer diagnosis and their significant others.

The aim was to systematically review the qualitative evidence on non-specialist nurses providing palliative end-of life cancer care in non-specialist hospital wards

Methods: A comprehensive systematic review and meta-synthesis based on a peer reviewed protocol and the Joanna Briggs Institute aggregative method. A three step search strategy was performed. We aimed to identify published and unpublished literature. Databases were searched up until August 2017. Both authors assessed papers for methodological consistence. Afterwards, the extracted data were aggregated into as meta-synthesis.

Results: Three studies met all inclusion criteria. The meta-synthesis was based on 81 findings aggregated into five categories. The meta-synthesis: Non-specialist nurses providing palliative end-of-life cancer care are faced with a myriad of challenges. The five categories: 1. Being there for the patient, 2. Cooperation with significant others, 3. Being ethically trapped, 4. Faced with barriers and 5. Job satisfaction.

Conclusions: Being part of a palliative team requires non-specialist nurses to update their evidence based knowledge about palliative end-of-life cancer care in order to deliver holistic care to patients and their significant others. Non-specialist nurses need clinical leadership in order to deal with the psychosocial and existential suffering of patients and their significant others during palliative end-of-life cancer care.