What Is a Good Death in South Asia? A Systematic Review and Narrative Synthesis.
Lihini Wijeyaratne, Odette Spruijt, Saroj Jayasinghe and 3 others
PMID 40099669WHAT IT FOUND
A good death in South Asia often meant pain control, family involvement, spiritual rituals, and choices about prognosis and place of death.
Nurses should ask each patient and family what these mean to them.
Key findings
01The synthesis identified four themes: mutual care and connection, freedom to choose, opportunities in the last days, and after death matters.
02Pain and symptom control were widely considered essential, but uncontrolled pain and financial distress could limit a patient's ability to choose and participate in care.
03Patients differed in wanting information and decision-making: some wanted access to illness, treatment, prognosis, and quality-of-life discussions, while others preferred family or clinicians to decide.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Initial screening and extraction were done by one reviewer, so important studies could have been missed. Most evidence came from India, and there were no included studies from Nepal, Afghanistan, or the Maldives, so the picture is incomplete for South Asia. The included studies were qualitative, survey, and mixed-method work about preferences, not tests of whether an intervention improves outcomes. Many qualitative studies did not report reflexivity, data saturation, or how data were selected. Many quantitative studies used adapted questionnaires rather than validated tools, and some used purposive or convenience sampling.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the themes as evidence that a particular end-of-life intervention improves outcomes. This review describes what patients, families, and clinicians valued, not what happened after a treatment.