Exploring the perspectives of nurses, physicians, and healthcare administrators in Saudi Arabian hospitals on palliative care and palliative care nursing

Palliative care is an area in healthcare that is focused on alleviating and/or preventing the suffering experienced by patients across various conditions. In recent years, palliative care has grown tremendously as an integral part of healthcare institutions worldwide. However, not all countries have well-established palliative care services, or recognise the importance of palliative care. It is important for healthcare professionals to recognise the value of palliative care, and those who work in order to be able to provide such care to patients. However, there may be professional and cultural barriers that prevent practitioners in specific contexts to be able to do so. Specifically, this paper considered the context of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), which is known to be culturally different from the west where the concept of palliative care originated and where the recent progress in palliative care is most evident. In this paper, reviewing of articles regarding cancer care in Saudi Arabia, cancer pain in Saudi Arabia, overview of palliative care in Saudi Arabia and issues with palliative care in Saudi Arabia are analysed and discussed to proceed with the intended research study to solve the research questions