The Legal Aspects of Assessing the Quality of Life of Patients in the Final Stages of a Disease: A Comparative Analysis of Poland and Ukraine

Palliative care is intended to provide patients with the highest possible level of quality of life in the final phase of a disease. The aim of this work is to present the issue of quality assessment in palliative medicine, necessary due to the specificity of services and their short duration due to the exceptional fragility of patients. Polish regulations are compared with the actual conditions in Ukraine, and the current problem of palliative care in terms of the quality of services provided in Ukraine is outlined. Th e article presents the concept of the patient’s quality of life in the light of the law introduced in Poland in 2023. As a result of the narrative review, the issues of quality of life in palliative care and methods for its measurement and assessment are discussed and compared. The analysis shows that although quality-of-life studies in palliative care are the basis for a subjective, not an objective, assessment of the patient’s condition, they allow for obtaining information on both the symptoms of the disease and the assessment of treatment, and additionally, and extremely importantly, for the assessment of the psychological, social and spiritual dimensions of patients receiving palliative care.