Responding to Suffering:Development Course and Social Dimensions of Palliative Care.

A review of the development course of palliative care reveals that its goal of alleviating suffering determines the indispensability of the social dimension in this field.As palliative care emerges in response to the general trends such as aging and disease spectrum changes of social development,it naturally becomes one of the key solutions to social issues including the difficulties in caregiving and hospitalization for end-of-life patients.Beyond its social value,the comprehensiveness and localization of care emphasized by palliative care also require the support and intervention of theoretical perspectives such as social support and sociocultural adaptation.Through the framework of suffering and care,medicine and social sciences have achieved significant interdisciplinary integration in palliative care.