title: Refining a checklist for reporting patient populations and service characteristics in hospice and palliative care research.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In specialist hospice and palliative care services, variations occur in diagnoses and prognoses of subpopulations referred, service configuration, and the health systems delivering care. These three levels of variation limit the ability to generalize study findings.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This article reports on coding one year of palliative care research using a previously developed checklist. The aims were to 1) quantify current reporting of factors related to generalizability in specialist palliative care research; 2) review and potentially refine the checklist in light of the first aim; 3) demonstrate the feasibility of collecting these data; and 4) set out simple processes to aid researchers in reporting, and clinicians in applying, new research evidence in hospice and palliative care.
  
  
  METHODS
  A previously published checklist (five domains, 14 core subdomains, and 24 noncore subdomains) was used to code all research articles (n=189) published in 2007 in the three leading palliative care research journals.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The most frequently reported subdomains were patient age, gender, and diagnosis; model of service delivery; and patient performance status. Data in subdomains, including time from referral to death, socioeconomic indices, and ethnicity, were rarely reported; none reported whole-of-service or whole-of-population data. In total, 2646 (189×14) core subdomains could have been reported. Data were provided in 28% (746/2646).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Checklists such as the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials evaluate study design, focusing mainly on internal validity. The proposed checklist deals with specific content of hospice and palliative care, focusing on external validity.
authors.affiliation: Palliative and Supportive Services, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. david.currow@flinders.edu.au
authors.forename: David C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Currow
authors.forename: Jennifer J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Tieman
authors.forename: Aine
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Greene
authors.forename: S Yousuf
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Zafar
authors.forename: Jane L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Wheeler
authors.forename: Amy P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Abernethy
mesh_terms: D057189:Checklist; D017051:Hospice Care / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012106:Research; D012107:Research Design