Criteria for inclusion in the scoping review

Aims

For an article/project/paper to be included in the scoping review, it must have relevant aims. Therefore, we must be able to answer YES to one of the following questions:

• Did the work aim to helping to prevent social difficulties around death, dying, loss or care?
• Did the work aim to minimise the harm of one of the current difficulties around death, dying, loss or care?
• Could the work be classified as an early intervention along the journey of death, dying, loss or care?

Approach

For an article/project/paper to be included in the scoping review, it must have followed a public health approach to palliative care. Therefore, we must be able to answer YES to BOTH of the following questions:

• Did the work aim to change the setting/environment for the better? (ie it aims to change things, not just observe or document what is there.)
• Was the work participatory, in that it involved working with communities or wider society?

Notes

The above criteria have been derived from Allan Kellehear’s (2005)

‘Big 7 Checklist’. In this checklist Allan Kellehear also emphasises the importance of initiatives being “sustainable” (ie will the activity/initiative continue in the long term? Do the resources and commitment exist to make it likely that the activity will continue once the initial set-up work has been done?) and “capable of evaluation”. Though not part of our inclusion criteria, these are issues that the group hopes to explore as part of its work.

Kellehear, A. (2005) Compassionate cities: public health and end-of-life care, London and New York: Routledge.