Keywords
Code of ethics, end-of-life care definition, nursing ethics, palliative care, terminal care Introduction
In 2011, Chiba University Graduate School of Nursing in Japan started a new program for end-of-life care in
nursing. As founding faculty of the program, we started philosophical, theoretical, and empirical examinations of end-of-life care and nursing roles. Through this effort, we recognized the lack of precise definitions
of the meaning of end of life and end-of-life care, and, consequently, nurses’ practice and nursing roles in
end-of-life care are left for interpretation of each nurse. The purpose of this article is to report our work to
define ‘‘end-of-life care’’ as a framework for our program and to explore roles of nurses in end-of-life care
from perspectives of nursing ethics. History and current definitions related to end-of-life care
The term ‘‘end-of-life care’’ is often used interchangeably with various terms such as terminal care, hospice
care, or palliative care. Shifts in the preference of terms to use in the last 30–40 years have occurred, and the
specific meanings of terms have changed over time. Meanings and definitions of terms vary by organizations and countries as well (see Table 1).