Presenting Palliative Care Units and Specialized Outpatient Palliative Care Teams on the Internet - a Corpus-Based Meta-Analysis of Websites

Background Websites play an important role in providing information about palliative services; both for patients, relatives and interested laypersons. Method We analysed 488 websites from Wegweiser Palliativmedizin (31.7.2019; 242 inpatient services; 246 were outpatient services). We use statistical keywords and manual queries to explore descriptions of the services and frequently named symptoms. Results Both types websites contain general information on palliative medicine and more specific information on the sort of care units in question. Differences between in- and outpatient units relate to the way that professionality aspects are portrayed. Discussion The websites describe a narrow spectrum of diseases (cancer) and symptoms (pain, shortness of breath, nausea), which hardly matches the current academic discourse including e. g. neuro-degenerative conditions and psycho-social symptoms. Conclusion We propose that the sites could be extended with this information in order to enable patients and relatives to relate the services to their own situation and to more comprehensively depict the scope of palliative medicine.