Abstract
The concept of palliative is widely used for the care of dying persons. Is there a difference between palliative care, terminal care and hospice care? What characterizes palliative care? The purpose of this paper was to clarify the content of the concept of palliative and to promote clarity of the concept's importance to nursing science.
A concept analysis was undertaken. After a search in dictionary and a review of the literature the defining attributes were determined. These are that: curative treatment is not meaningful, the main mission is to relieve, neither postpone nor hasten death, open communication about the patient's impending death, have a holistic view of the patient, to support the patient to live as actively as possible, to maintain hope, to offer support to the family during the patient's illness and in bereavement, and to offer support to the staff.
The antecedent were found to be the diagnosis of an uncurable disease. The consequences were found to be quality of life from the patient's perspective and a death with dignity. Demonstration cases were constructed to clarify the concept. The boundaries of palliative is not enough delineated, that is a mission for further research.