Palliative Care for Chronic Diseases

Dear Colleagues,

The World Health Organization defines palliative care as an approach that improves quality of life for patients and their families who are faced with the problems associated with living with a life-limiting condition. Palliative care focusses on the relief of suffering through the assessment and management of complex symptoms that can be physical, psychological, social or spiritual. Relief of such suffering requires attention to person-centred care, where the patient and their family are involved and are part of all decisions regarding their health. This must also include the patient’s wishes and preferences for care and treatment at all times. A key principle of palliative care is that it is applicable at any point along the disease trajectory. Indeed, access to palliative care—including end-of-life care—has been identified as a human right (Brennan, 2007), and irrespective of diagnosis, prognosis, geographic location, gender, sexual orientation and civil status, patients and their families have a right to ethical palliative care, which incorporates individual needs and includes consideration of wishes and preferences for care, including place of care. 

This Special Issue will explore palliative care for chronic disease, examining the key issues that arise for patients and their families in receipt of palliative and end-of-life care. 

Articles for this Special Issue may focus on issues that arise for patients with chronic disease and their families from diverse and varying cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and how these may influence health-related decision making.  

Through these explorations, this Special Issue will draw attention to, and deepen our understanding of, palliative care for chronic disease.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Dr. Mary Ryder
Dr. Michael Connolly
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• palliative care
• chronic disease
• supportive care
• complex symptoms