Barry Ashpole’s Literature Search is a banquet for palliative care students, scholars, clinicians, researchers, and advocates alike. Like all banquets, buffets, or smorgasbords, each issue has something for everyone, and people can benefit from revisiting the archive according to their needs, interests, and appetites for information. Barry does us all a service by keeping up with the headlong development of palliative care practices, standards, and knowledge in different global contexts, as well as by assessing the value of information published in scientific journals, the grey literature, and even social media.
The Literature Search page on the IAHPC website groups the articles under ‘Access to Care,’ ‘Education & Training,’ ‘Essential Medicines,’ ‘Policy and Practice’ and ‘Research.’ Headings are followed by listings of related articles, for example, on care planning and serious illness conversations, community and home-based palliative care, cultural and linguistic diversity, etc., etc. Although the majority of articles selected are open access and available online, there may be a handful behind a paywall that are included because the topic is of particular interest.
For instance, since my main area of advocacy concerns improving access to and availability of internationally controlled essential medicines, I was pleased to see this listing: ‘High prevalence of severe pain is associated with low opioid availability in patients with advanced cancer: Combined database study and nationwide questionnaire survey in Japan,’ Research Square. Posted online 2 January 2024. I would never have found it on my own! Barry also included my Ehospice article on the Pledge4Action under Essential Medicines.
Many articles will be useful to Ehospice readers and palliative care advocates throughout the world; they could even serve as a basis for communities of practice in your countries. Titles listed in the 2024 issue alone mention (and bold for easy identification) the following countries: Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Israel, Japan, Latin America, Malawi, Malaysia, Norway, Rwanda, Singapore, Southeast Asia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the US. I may have missed a few!! And that is just one issue.
The February issue covers topics like caregiving, funding, paediatric palliative care, EOL communications, EOL in prison settings, hospice architecture, and digital health. If you do a word search for something that interests you, you’ll be sure to find it! And, if you are anything like me, you might browse the list and find something to catch your eye, making you click a link that sends you down a whole new rabbit hole!
A communications consultant, Barry is located in Ontario, Canada, and his involvement in hospice and palliative care dates from the early 1980s. Over the years, he has been involved in—or responsible for—a broad range of initiatives at all levels: community, regional, and national. Barry’s primary focus has been on communications strategies and policy development addressing issues specific to patients and their families living with a life-threatening or terminal illness. In particular, he has applied his experience to developing and teaching online and in-class courses, as well as facilitating issue-specific workshops for frontline health professionals in Canada, the U.S., and Singapore. A precursor to Literature Search was Media Watch, a weekly report he published for more than 15 years that was widely recognised as an advocacy, teaching, and research tool.
Literature Search is a labour of love, like so much of our work in global palliative care. Different readers may want to see it organised in different ways, or have suggestions about other things to include to make it even more useful than it already is. If so, please get in touch. Sign up here to receive Literature Search in your inbox.
In the meantime, happy reading, or should I say ‘bon appétit’? Literature search will provide you with a nourishing meal, no matter your dietary preference!
Katherine Pettus is a Palliative care paraclete advocating for the right of patients to receive internationally controlled essential medicines to relieve preventable pain and suffering.
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