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Background: Globally the state of palliative care research remains uncertain. Questions remain regarding impact, funding, and research priorities. Building upon previous research, this review examines palliative care research in Ireland and contributes to a wider international debate on the state of palliative care research. Methods: A systematic mapping review was undertaken. Eight bibliographic databases and thesis repositories were searched from May 2012 to April 2017. Palliative care related search terms were combined with "Ireland" or "Irish" to increase search sensitivity. Inclusion criteria were applied by two independent reviewers. Descriptive analysis was completed using IBM SPSS v23. Thematic analysis was undertaken using a data-driven approach to develop new themes. Results: In total, 808 studies were screened and 151 papers from 117 studies were included for review. The top two areas of research focus included: (1) specific groups, services, and settings (n = 70); and (2) identification, communication and education (n = 37). A diverse variety of research methods were used including mixed methods (25%), surveys (22%), interviews (20%), and reviews (17%). One randomised control trial was conducted. The predominance of research papers focused solely on health care professionals (n = 35%), and the community setting was the most frequent location for data collection (41%). The majority of data was collected across the two jurisdictions of the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and Northern Ireland (NI) (37%), and 23% of studies included data outside of Ireland and the UK. The most frequent sources of funding were: consortiums (n = 40); government (n = 24); and philanthropic bodies (n = 20). Forty percent (n = 60) of papers were either unfunded or did not acknowledge a funder. Conclusions: There is a continued increase in palliative care research in Ireland with increased collaborative working nationally and internationally. The quantity and impact of research has incr

Background For outcome measures to be useful in health and care decision-making, they need to have certain psychometric properties. The ICECAP-Supportive Care Measure (ICECAP-SCM), a seven attribute measure (1. Choice, 2. Love and affection, 3. Physical suffering, 4. Emotional suffering, 5. Dignity, 6. Being supported, 7. Preparation) developed for use in economic evaluation of end-of-life interventions, has face validity and is feasible to use. This study aimed to assess the construct validity and responsiveness of the ICECAP-SCM in hospice inpatient and outpatient settings. Methods: A secondary analysis of data collated from two studies, one focusing on palliative care day services and the other on constipation management, undertaken in the same national hospice organisation across three UK hospices, was conducted. Other quality of life and wellbeing outcome measures used were the EQ-5D-5L, McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire – Expanded (MQOL-E), Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2) and Palliative Outcomes Scale Symptom list (POS-S). The construct validity of the ICECAP-SCM was assessed, following hypotheses generation, by calculating correlations between: (i) its domains and the domains of other outcome measures, (ii) its summary score and the other measures’ domains, (iii) its summary score and the summary scores of the other measures. The responsiveness of the ICECAP-SCM was assessed using anchor-based methods to understand change over time. Statistical analysis consisted of Spearman and Pearson correlations for construct validity and paired t-tests for the responsiveness analysis. Results Sixty-eight participants were included in the baseline analysis. Five strong correlations were found with ICECAP-SCM attributes and items on the other measures: four with the Emotional suffering attribute (Anxiety/depression on

Background For outcome measures to be useful in health and care decision-making, they need to have certain psychometric properties. The ICECAP-Supportive Care Measure (ICECAP-SCM), a seven attribute measure (1. Choice, 2. Love and affection, 3. Physical suffering, 4. Emotional suffering, 5. Dignity, 6. Being supported, 7. Preparation) developed for use in economic evaluation of end-of-life interventions, has face validity and is feasible to use. This study aimed to assess the construct validity and responsiveness of the ICECAP-SCM in hospice inpatient and outpatient settings. Methods: A secondary analysis of data collated from two studies, one focusing on palliative care day services and the other on constipation management, undertaken in the same national hospice organisation across three UK hospices, was conducted. Other quality of life and wellbeing outcome measures used were the EQ-5D-5L, McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire – Expanded (MQOL-E), Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2) and Palliative Outcomes Scale Symptom list (POS-S). The construct validity of the ICECAP-SCM was assessed, following hypotheses generation, by calculating correlations between: (i) its domains and the domains of other outcome measures, (ii) its summary score and the other measures’ domains, (iii) its summary score and the summary scores of the other measures. The responsiveness of the ICECAP-SCM was assessed using anchor-based methods to understand change over time. Statistical analysis consisted of Spearman and Pearson correlations for construct validity and paired t-tests for the responsiveness analysis. Results Sixty-eight participants were included in the baseline analysis. Five strong correlations were found with ICECAP-SCM attributes and items on the other measures: four with the Emotional suffering attribute (Anxiety/depression on