“This 5th edition is an important achievement; it is a symbol of commitment to the field of palliative nursing, where we have been and where we are going.”

- Betty Rolling Ferrell, PhD, MA, FAAN, FPCN, CHPN

From the Foreword

The aging population has only grown since the first edition of this comprehensive and seminal publication nearly 20 years ago. Based on the need to humanize rather than medicalize the illness experience for patients, this text delves into palliative care beyond the specific diseases affecting the patient. Instead, content focuses on the whole person and family.

Palliative patients struggle with chronic, debilitating, and painful conditions, and grapple with the fact that life as they knew it has already passed away. Families and friends reciprocally suffer, not knowing how to help and therefore become the secondary victims of the disease. This is not the challenge of a lone nurse, or a single physician, therapist, or social worker. Rather, palliative and hospice care requires the expertise and unique roles of an interprofessional team to help the patient and family strengthen their resilience, continue to find meaning and purpose in life, and cure what can be cured.

Palliative Care Nursing, Fifth Edition, delivers advanced empirical, aesthetic, ethical and personal knowledge. This new edition brings an increased focus on outcomes, benchmarking progress, and goals of care. It expounds upon the importance of the cross-disciplinary collaboration introduced in the previous edition. Every chapter in Sections I, II, and III includes content written by a non-nursing member of the interprofessional team. Based on best-evidence and clinical practice guidelines, this text presents comprehensive, targeted interventions responsive to the needs of palliative and hospice patients and family. Each chapter contains compassionate, timely, appropriate, and cost-effective care for diverse populations across the illness trajectory.

Key Features



The expanded new edition offers current, comprehensive, one-stop source of highly-relevant clinical information on palliative care
Life-span approach: age-appropriate nursing considerations (e.g. geriatric, pediatric and family)
Includes disease-specific and symptom-specific nursing management chapters
Promotes a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to palliative care
Offers important legal, ethical and cultural considerations related to death and dying
Case Studies with Case Study Conclusion in each clinical chapter

New to The Fifth Edition:



An expanded chapter on Palliative Care incorporates most up to date scope and standards, information on Basic and Advanced HPNA certification, self-reflection and self-care for nurses.
A chapter on Interprofessional Collaboration
Instructor Resources: Power points and Test bank