Table 1

Population, concept, context

Criteria	Search strands (see next table for details)	Definitions
Population	Patients Carers Relatives Others significant to the patient excluding healthcare and social care professionals General public	People who receive or are otherwise involved in healthcare in the last phase of life. Including anyone within a patient’s informal social network (eg, relatives, friends, volunteer carers, other persons of significance to the patient except those providing a professional role). General public taking an interest in palliative care.
Concept 1	Safety	Patient safety is the reduction of risk of unnecessary harm associated with healthcare to an acceptable minimum. An acceptable minimum refers to the collective notions of given current knowledge, resources available and the context in which care was delivered weighed against the risk of non-treatment or other treatment.22
Concept 2	Medication use/management	‘Getting the right medication to the right person at the right time’. Encompassing the whole multi-step task of: Decision making/starting a medication. Prescribing/taking/adding a medication. Monitoring and supply/reviewing a medication. Administration. Stopping medications. Moving across healthcare contexts.^{74 75}
Context	Last phase of life palliative care Of any type (eg, specialist or generalist). In any location.	Last phase of life defined as having potentially life-limiting irreversible or progressive condition requiring general or specialist palliative care for symptom control, social, psychological and/or spiritual support. Given the challenges of prognostication, and tendency for this to be overestimated we have chosen not to include a time frame in this definition. ‘Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual. Palliative care: Provides relief from pain and other distressing symptoms. Affirms life and regards dying as a normal process. Intends neither to hasten or postpone death. Integrates the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care. Offers a support system to help patients live as actively as possible until death. Offers a support system to help the family cope during the patients illness and in their own bereavement. Uses a team approach to address the needs of patients and their families, including bereavement counselling, if indicated. Will enhance quality of life, and may also positively influence the course of illness. Is applicable early in the course of illness, in conjunction with other therapies that are intended to prolong life, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy, and includes those investigations needed to better understand and manage distressing clinical complications.’ https://www.who.int/cancer/palliative/definition/en/