Incidence of Death Anxiety in Palliative Care: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objective: To explore the incidence of death anxiety in palliative care patients, find some existing and potential causes, and put forward suggestions. Methods: Publication bias, sensitivity analysis, subgroup analysis, and regression analysis were also conducted to explore the sources of the heterogeneity in our analysis. Results: The 607 studies were obtained, and 20 studies were included after reading the articles and quality evaluation. The incidence of death anxiety in patients was 0.44 (95%CI:0.38,0.51, p < 0.001). and heterogeneity was significant (I-2 = 98.2%, p < 0.001). In the test of regression analysis, the average age (I-2 = 98.15%, R-2 = - 6.99%, p < 0.001); in gender (I-2 = 97.84%, R-2 = 1.14%, p < 0.001), its heterogeneity was also significant. Conclusion: The incidence of death anxiety is relatively high. More often occur in elderly female patients. This requires more attention to life itself rather than death.