The Effectiveness of Palliative Care on the Quality of Life of Patients with Advanced Cancer: An Integrative Review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36557/2674-8169.2026v8n6p300-309Keywords:
Palliative Care, Neoplasms, Quality of LifeAbstract
The management of advanced-stage cancer requires strategies that go beyond curative treatment, prioritizing the reduction of overall suffering. In this context, palliative care (PC), especially when introduced early, promotes improvements in physical and psychological well-being, in addition to offering psychosocial support. This approach may also contribute to longer survival by avoiding invasive interventions with low efficacy. This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of PC in improving the quality of life (QOL) of patients with advanced cancer. This integrative review searched the PubMed and VHL databases for the time period 2021–2025, including articles that investigated improvements in QoL using the search terms “Palliative Care,” “Neoplasms,” and “Quality of Life” combined with the Boolean operator “AND.” After applying the eligibility criteria to the 4,130 studies, 3 articles were included in this review. The results demonstrated heterogeneous findings regarding the impact of PC on QoL, with more evident benefits observed when this approach was integrated early into cancer treatment. However, some studies did not identify statistically significant differences between the groups analyzed. Nevertheless, CP have proven to be effective in symptom management, psychosocial support, and the organization of care for cancer patients. It is concluded that PC constitutes an essential approach in the care of patients with advanced cancer, although more methodologically robust and standardized studies are needed to more accurately assess its impact on QoL.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Aline Vasconcelos da Silva, Maria Rochelly Barboza Almeida, Graciellen de Lima Silva, Ana Paula Lopes Venancio Lima, Elizangela Canuto da Costa, Júlia Oliveira Aroucha, Hyvina Nataly Santos de Lima, Catarina Barros Rodrigues, Juliana Bezerra Lima, Rayonara Cardoso Moura, Mikaela Maria Ferreira da Luz, Beatriz Augusta Silva
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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