Chinese Expert Consensus on the Definitions of Palliative Care and Hospice Care (2025).

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The development of modern palliative care in China began in the 1980s and is currently in an accelerating phase. However, inconsistencies in terminology and concepts have hindered policy-making, clinical practice, and academic research. The Terminology of Clinical Medicine (2023 edition) has determined Huan-He-Yi-Liao () and An-Ning-Liao-Hu () as the formal terms of "palliative care" and "hospice care", respectively. To align with these terms, this study aims to establish expert consensus definitions tailored to the Chinese context. METHODS: We systematically retrieved and collected domestic and international literature and policy documents related to the definition of palliative care, then deconstructed and analyzed the relevant conceptual elements of these definitions. Core expert panel built the initial recommended definition upon the conceptual elements and consensus definition of palliative care by the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care (IAHPC) through two rounds of online discussions. After nomination and selection, 61 professionals in the field of palliative care in china were invited to participate in the consensus expert group. Two rounds of Delphi consultation were conducted among the consensus experts, who were asked to score their agreement using Likert scale to the items in the initial recommended definition and the definition statements of palliative care and hospice care. Agreement rate of over 80% was considered as reaching consensus for each items. The core expert panel revised the items and the statements of recommended definitions based on the results from two-round of Delphi surveys. The final recommended definitions were formulated after feedback from patient and public involvement (PPI) group members. RESULTS: The response rates for the first and second rounds of Delphi survey were 83.6% and 100.0%, respectively. The agreement rate of the items and statements of the recommended definitions exceeded 90%. Accordingly, the definitions based on Chinese expert consensus are recommended. Palliative care is an active holistic approach aimed at patients of all ages suffering from life-threatening illness and their families and caregivers. It seeks to improve their quality of life by preventing, assessing, and relieving physical, psychological, social, and spiritual suffering. Hospice care is an integral part of palliative care, focusing on holistic care for patients at the end of life and their families and caregivers. Its goal is to help patients to maintain dignity and achieve a good death by alleviating physical, psychological, social, and spiritual distress without intentionally hastening or postponing death, meanwhile improve the quality of life for families and caregivers. CONCLUSIONS: This study has established the Chinese expert consensus definitions of palliative care and hospice care in China, as well as the relationship between the two. The definitions highlight the holistic nature of palliative care, providing a foundation for discipline development, clinical practice, and public communication.