Bringing compassion and dignity to end-of-life care
26 February 2025
| In the mid-1980s, while working as a palliative care nurse at the height of the AIDS epidemic, Dr. Kelli Stajduhar saw many patients who weren’t having their pain managed or even acknowledged. A few years later, she watched her mother receive less-than-optimal care following a terminal lung cancer diagnosis.
Kelli was profoundly affected by these experiences, which drove her to examine ways to improve end-of-life care and support. Today, she leads a research program at the University of Victoria focused on adding quality of life for seniors in long-term care and community-based settings. Working with caregivers, residents and their families, her team is dedicated to bringing compassion and dignity to people’s final years. In BC, only 15 to 30 percent of people who could benefit from palliative care and support systems have access to these specialized services. The traditional model of palliative care was born out of a cancer model and is focused on end-of-life services for terminal cancer patients, which may not be appropriate for all persons facing life-limiting chronic illnesses. |
Dr. Kelli StajduharHealth Research BC supported Dr. Kelli Stajduhar with a Scholar Award and Research Trainee Award as well as match funding for the SALTY study and a research project on navigating end-of-life care. |
Applying an equity lens and a strong focus on community and vulnerable populations, Kelli’s research sets out to reform this model to provide and improve palliative care in multiple settings, including for long-term care clients and hard-to-reach, homeless populations.
Her team was part of the Seniors Adding Life to Years (SALTY) study – a four-year initiative that received match funding from Health Research BC. The SALTY study evaluated promising programs, practices and policies in four provinces – British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia – to support change in how decision makers and practitioners provide care and support in long-term care across the country.
“As a society we need to understand what’s important to the long-term care residents, and what’s important to the family. This work provides the foundation for ensuring that people have good care as they are coming to the end of their lives,” says Kelli.
Outcomes of this work include the development of training programs for caregivers about how to have difficult conversations with residents and their families, and scenario-based training to support long-term care teams.
“The SALTY project allowed my colleagues and myself the time and space to address important questions in care for our aging populations,” Kelli adds. “The funding from Health Research BC enabled us to collaborate on a national level and find better ways to care for older adults in our community.”
| Dr. Kelli Stajduhar is a professor at the University of Victoria School of Nursing and a research fellow at the Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health. She was also awarded Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Palliative Approaches to Care in Aging & Community Health. |
