Introduction:
Palliative care is considered an essential need for cancer patients, whose main objective is to reduce pain and relieve cancer patients. The main duty of this type of care is to pay attention to the needs of cancer patients in all their physical, psychological, and social dimensions (۱). Due to the fact that understanding and conscious decision-making in patients is associated with procrastination and stress, special attention should be paid to cancer patients in medical ethics and providing palliative care. Since understanding and conscious decision-making in cancer patients is accompanied by doubt and stress, special attention should be paid to them in the provision of palliative services, but due to the lack of accurate knowledge of their inner psyche and the lack of sufficient studies on cancer patients, especially in the final stages of lives, the special relationship between the patient and his companions, and specific cultural thoughts about the cancer patient, their rights are still ignored (۲). The present research was conducted with the aim of investigating the ethical challenges and obstacles of palliative care for cancer patients.Material and methods: This research was conducted through reviewing published articles and available inside and outside of Iran between ۲۰۰۸ and ۲۰۲۲ in Scientific Information Database (SID), Magiran, Iranmedex, Google scholar, Irandoc, NCBI databases, and by searching for keywords such as cancer, cancer patients, intensive care, palliative care, terminal care, nursing' end stages with a time limit. In total, ۹۵ articles were found, of which ۱۵ articles did not meet the inclusion criteria and finally ۸۰ articles were included in the study.Results: Based on the above studies, the ethical challenges and obstacles in the way of providing these services include lack of time and resources, lack of a suitable place for family mourning, lack of presence of a clergyman to support the family, lack of family acceptance and cooperation, and limited meeting hours. On the other hand, ethical challenges such as euthanasia, ignoring the decision-making rights of cancer patients, how to inform these patients about their disease condition, regarding the dignity and respect for the opinions of cancer patients and their families.Conclusion:
Palliative care in cancer patients has many ambiguities due to ethical complications, which often do not have a precise legal solution, and requires detailed and very complex research in this regard. Based on the findings, there are many obstacles and ethical challenges in the way of implementing palliative care in cancer patients, which makes it difficult to access this type of care. Therefore, considering the importance of palliative care, taking thenecessary measures to identify and solve the ethical challenges in reaching these services, providing optimal services, and improving the quality of life and life expectancy in cancer patients, especially in the final stages are suggested.