A thematic analysis of hospital medical records of patients with advanced illness experiencing incarceration in the last 3 months of life

Abstract

Background: The constraining prison culture is not, for the most part, conducive to the provision of palliative care for people in prison. Aim: This study aimed to explore patterns of palliative and end-of-life care provision for hospitalised prison patients. Design: A retrospective qualitative review of hospital medical records to explore the quality of end-of-life care provision for patients experiencing incarceration who died within hospital. Qualitative inductive analysis of record extracts of each patients final 3-months of life was undertaken. Setting/participants: An Australian metropolitan hospital responsible for providing secondary and tertiary health services for people experienci..