The Lived Experiences of Healthcare Professionals with Inpatient Specialist Palliative Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Interview Study (Sch466)

OUTCOMES: 1. Describe the perceived role and expectations of an inpatient palliative care team during the COVID-19 pandemic. 2. Identify how palliative care evolved during and as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on reflecting within one's individual practice environments about how their practice has changed. BACKGROUND: During the COVID-19 pandemic, pallative care responded to unprecedented suffering by balancing increasing professional demands with the need to maintain high-quality care. However, few studies characterized the lived experiences of palliative care clinicians through this tumultuous time. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES: This study aims to characterize healthcare professionals’ expectations of and experiences with inpatient specialist palliative care during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: We conducted an exploratory qualitative study using semistructured interviews. We used a combination of purposive and snowball sampling to recruit healthcare professionals (ie, palliative care clinicians, physicians, allied health professionals, and health leaders) at one Canadian tertiary academic hospital. Recruitment stopped when we reached thematic saturation. We developed the interview guide informed by the socioecological model and our ongoing systematic literature review. One author interviewed the participants over phone or Zoom after obtaining written consent and completing an oral demographics questionnaire. One author audio recorded, transcribed, and deidentified the audio files. The resulting transcripts were uploaded into NVivo 12 and thematically analysed. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The study protocol is currently under review at our institutional research ethics board. The interview guide has received feedback from multidisciplinary qualitative researchers and was iteratively revised after three pilot interviews with palliative care clinicians practicing in other settings. We anticipate findings pertaining to the evolving roles of the inpatient palliative care team through COVID-19, the changing priorities that define high-quality care during periods of severe resource limitation, caring for patients in nontraditional settings, and perceived disparities in care quality among marginalized populations. IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH, POLICY, OR PRACTICE: The study findings will provide a foundation for future initiatives that aim to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of inpatient palliative care teams during pandemics.