2026 Volume 7 Issue 2
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Continuity of Palliative Nursing without a Stable Home Address: A Conceptual Service Model for Relational Responsibility across Shelters, Outreach Services, and Temporary Accommodation


, ,
  1. Department of Nursing, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
  2. Department of Nursing Science, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
  3. Department of Community Health, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Abstract

To examine how palliative nursing continuity can be sustained when a stable residential address cannot function as the organizing point for follow-up, information exchange, responsibility, and recontact. Original non-empirical service-model development informed by critically selected scholarship on homelessness, palliative and end-of-life care, outreach nursing, service navigation, discharge, integrated care, and continuity. Peer-reviewed evidence published from 2017 to 2025 was selected for direct relevance to homelessness and palliative care or for a clearly bounded contribution concerning nursing access, navigation, transitions, coordination, trauma-informed services, or organizational implementation. The analysis identifies a recurrent mismatch between place-dependent service organization and the mobility, uncertainty, fragmented service use, and relational vulnerability experienced by people without stable accommodation. Continuity therefore requires mechanisms that remain functional when a person moves between shelters, temporary accommodation, hospitals, outreach settings, or periods in which no reliable residential contact point exists. The proposed service logic treats continuity as a distributed organizational responsibility rather than an attribute automatically produced by repeated attendance at one service. Palliative nursing for people experiencing homelessness requires continuity arrangements that can survive changes in place, service, and contact route. Address-independent continuity should protect relational knowledge, clinically relevant information, responsibility, and the possibility of renewed contact while remaining voluntary, privacy-respecting, and adaptable to local service structures.


How to cite this article
Vancouver
Thompson S, Schmidt K, Johnson M. Continuity of Palliative Nursing without a Stable Home Address: A Conceptual Service Model for Relational Responsibility across Shelters, Outreach Services, and Temporary Accommodation. J Integr Nurs Palliat Care. 2026;7(2):82-91. https://doi.org/10.51847/2Yozhbc5IK
APA
Thompson, S., Schmidt, K., & Johnson, M. (2026). Continuity of Palliative Nursing without a Stable Home Address: A Conceptual Service Model for Relational Responsibility across Shelters, Outreach Services, and Temporary Accommodation. Journal of Integrative Nursing and Palliative Care, 7(2), 82-91. https://doi.org/10.51847/2Yozhbc5IK
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