This research explores the accounts of patients and families in palliative care, alongside views of staff and volunteers, to better understand what matters to people in palliative care. Experiences of hospitalisation can mean that patients and families feel disconnected; patients may experience a lack of comfort when in hospital, in the absence of familiar people, places, and things. How patients, families, and staff understand comfort or discomfort, including being and feeling comfortable and the practices or accomplishment of comforting, is central to the practice and philosophy of palliative care.
This research is an interdisciplinary collaboration, comprising scholars in sociology and architecture, alongside expert clinician researchers and managers at Sacred Heart Health Service in Sydney, part of St Vincent’s Health Network. Through the research we aim to provide insights as to how policies, practices, design, spaces, and emerging technologies can better support people in palliative care.
Project outcomes
- Kirby, E., McLaughlan, R., Bellemore, F., Swanson, R., Gissing, J., & Chye, R. (2025). On comfort in palliative care. Health Sociology Review, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/14461242.2024.2447021
- Kirby E, McLaughlan R, Wallworth L, Chappell L, Bellemore F, Chye R. Connection, comfort and COVID-19 in palliative care. Palliative Care and Social Practice. 2021;15. https://doi.org/10.1177/26323524211001389
- Download the photobook developed from participant-produced photographs here.
Project investigators
External investigators
- (University of Sydney)
- Frances Bellemore (Sacred Heart Health Service, St Vincent’s Health Network)
- Robyn Swanson and Julie Gissing (Biography Service, Sacred Heart Health Service, St Vincent’s Health Network)