Abstract
Objective
To investigate how health professionals working in palliative care services understand rehabilitation related to oncology palliative care in England and Brazil, according to different health system contexts.
Design
Qualitative study.
Setting
Hospices, hospitals, community-based palliative care centre, palliative care units, nursing care homes in different areas of Brazil and England.
Participants
Thirty-six nurses and occupational therapists experienced in providing palliative care interventions from England and Brazil.
Interventions
Individual interviews with open-ended questions.
Main Measures
Individual semi-structured, in-depth interviews, analysed using Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic analysis.
Results
Professionals in England demonstrated a consolidated and integrated understanding of rehabilitation as part of palliative care, often supported by structured services such as hospices. In contrast, many Brazilian participants expressed uncertainty or perceived rehabilitation as incompatible with end-of-life care, reflecting conceptual misunderstandings, limited training and a lack of service infrastructure. The findings revealed divergence in how rehabilitation in palliative care is conceptualised and implemented in these countries. This divergence is reflected in structural, educational and cultural differences in how palliative care is organised and delivered. However, there is a growing recognition that rehabilitation and palliative care are not separate but complementary approaches.
Conclusions
The findings underscore the urgent need to clarify definitions, develop unified conceptual models and invest in policy and education to ensure that rehabilitation is no longer seen as contradictory to palliative goals, but as a complementary strategy to enhance quality of life in advanced cancer care.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
