In many countries, palliative care is provided in hospitals and hospices. Over time, palliative care has developed outside general health care and is provided in the patient's home. We examine the motivations for preferences for place of care at the end of life, and the reasons for changes in these preferences in so-called developed and developing countries. Pubmed, Google Scholar and Social Sciences Citation Index databases were searched as of January 2021. Qualitative and mixed studies on terminal care, preferences for end-of-life care settings and palliative care settings were considered. The inclusion criteria were studies published between 1980 and 2021 in English or French and dealing with preferences for place of care at the end of life and negotiations around the choice of end-of-life location. Place of residence and environment motivated the choice of home, while the socioeconomic position of patients and families partly motivated the choice of hospital. The most important reasons for choosing to leave the hospital for the home were structural dysfunction in the delivery of palliative care (developed and developing countries), cultural and belief imprint (developed and developing countries), and the quest for a good death (developing countries). End-of-life care at home was the most common preference. Return to hospital was the second preference, especially for advanced diseases such as genetic diseases, cancer, chronic hepatitis, malignant neoplasm. Study designs in this area need to be improved, especially in French West Africa.

Background: In Benin, medical pluralism is omnipresent. This study analysed the therapeutic process of women with cancers, admitted to palliative or end-of-life care in Benin.Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with three caregivers from the CNHU-HKM palliative care unit; the study was part of a retrospective project examining the records of 299 patients admitted to the PCU between 2015 and 2021 and a participant observation. SPPS® was used for a descriptive analysis of file data. Those from the interviews and observation were subjected to thematic and content analysis.Results: Upon admission to the PCU, 43.81% wanted healing and 13.38% wanted to seek complementary care (prayer therapy, herbal medicine). According to caregivers, patients do not fully adhere to the care provided to them. This could be due to the unaffordable cost of care and hospitalization, the shortage of care inputs and materials, perceptions about cancer and especially the failure to take into account the spiritual and cultural specificities of patients and families.Conclusions: This study provided a basis for improving palliative support in the context of medical pluralism and precariousness. Palliative care in the community or at home is imposed on the traditional health care system with the integration of a combination of biomedicine care, so-called non-conventional medicine and the knowledge and expertise of community members.