Summary: An important aspect of palliative care, advance care planning, and end-of-life healthcare is the necessity to ensure that all individuals, including those in the custody of the criminal justice system, receive compassionate and efficient care. While there has been an increase in studies related to inmates’ experiences in prison, a significant gap in the literature is the lack of synthesis gained from qualitative studies. To our knowledge, this is the first qualitative interpretive meta-synthesis of inmates’ experiences who are undergoing palliative care, advance care planning, and end-of-life in prison. Findings: The findings resulted in four overarching themes: (1) Inadequate access to health services, (2) lack of compassion toward the inmates, (3) distrust in the system, and (4) institutional control over inmates’ end-of-life decision making. By conducting a qualitative interpretative meta-synthesis, involving seven studies with 200 incarcerated participants, it was found that dignity, death, and dying experiences of inmates were significantly impeded by the prison settings. Application: The study indicates absence of adequate sensitive policies around healthcare in prison, especially end-of-life care. Social workers associated with the criminal justice system across the world must therefore be trained to provide psychosocial support to their clients and their families during this difficult time. Social workers must also advocate for their patients’ rights, and train prison staff to provide quality care until more efficient systems are institutionalized.
Handique et al. (Tue,) studied this question.