end of life; quality of life; symptom; unmet needs

Quality-of-life assessment is an important component of end-of-life care. The objective of this study was to evaluate the quality of life of patients in the final stage of their illness and its association with their demographic characteristics, physical symptoms, and unmet needs during their care.Differences were found in quality-of-life assessment with respect to the type of illness, gender, and age of the patients. There was an association between lower quality of life, symptom burden (pain), worse functional status, and unmet needs in the physical and psychosocial areas. Therefore, quality of life of terminal patients is tightly associated with good symptom management and high-quality nursing care.