Exploring the benefits and barriers of community palliative care in low- and middle-income countries: A Scoping Review

Implementation of community-based palliative care tends to vary across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The increasing trend of diseases requiring palliative care, if not properly managed, can reduce patients’ quality of life and increase healthcare costs burden. This scoping review aims to identify community-based palliative care programs, benefits, and barriers in LMICs. The article search was conducted using four databases namely PubMed, Web of Science, Sage Journals, and ScienceDirect. We used Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Scoping Review (PRISMA-ScR). The research question based on Population: palliative patient and providers in community setting; Concept: program, benefits, and barriers; Context: implementation of community palliative care in LMICs. The Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Critical Appraisal Checklist was used to assess the quality of the articles. Eleven articles were identified in this study, reporting that most palliative care programs implemented in communities in LMICs do not involve local health workers, and thus still play a dominant role. Benefits identified include ease access to services, improving patients’ and family quality of life, also enabling family and community support. Barriers include inadequate training for health workers: lack of knowledge, funding, infrastructure, and medication; and low public awareness. Palliative care improves quality of life and supports patients and families. Cross-sector support is needed to strengthen and expand services sustainably.