Table 1. Ten categories of end of life interventions.

	Focus	Definition	Examples
1	Policy	Decisions taken or rules adopted by governing authorities to deliver, facilitate, monitor or regulate end of life issues.	Strategies, regulatory and monitoring frameworks for end of life care, resource allocation protocols, standards, and guidelines.
2	Advocacy	Expressions or actions on end of life issues that aim to influence decisions of the institutional elite and/or promote the interests of specific populations, groups or individuals in particular contexts.	Calls for legalisation of medical aid in dying, assisted suicide, or euthanasia, concerns about inadequate access to pain medication or hospice and palliative care, ‘Declarations’ of various kinds on end of life issues.
3	Educational	Development of knowledge, skills, good judgment and character required for the delivery of appropriate end of life care	Educational resources and programmes extending from professional audiences to lay, family and informal carers and wider publics and interest groups.
4	Ethico-legal	Frameworks included within laws, guidelines or ethical codes that relate to issues at the end of life and which permit, facilitate or require specific courses of action.	Laws on with-holding or withdrawing treatment, assisted dying, euthanasia, suicide or the provision of pain relief and palliative care, professional requirements and standards about these issues.
5	Service	Medical, nursing and other services for the prevention, alleviation and/or reduction of suffering at the end of life through inpatient, outpatient, home care or other forms of services	Palliative care, hospice, pain and bereavement services, provision for housing with care, institutional and community based, public, private, non-profit.
6	Clinical	Medical, nursing, allied health and psycho-social procedures at the individual level to relieve symptoms and sufferings associated with advanced illnesses and when death is imminent	Procedures for pain relief, symptom management, care planning, bereavement care, for adults and children.
7	Research	Systematic enquiry on end of life issues for the purposes of establishing new knowledge and understanding by description, prediction, improvement and/or explanation	Studies in many disciplines and methodologies intended to illuminate, evaluate or re-define end of life issues.
8	Cultural	Initiatives taken to influence patterns of shared knowledge and symbolic meanings in particular communities, through which people perceive, interpret, express and respond to end of life issues	Designated ‘days’ relating to end of life issues, death cafes, salons, works of art, literature, film, poetry on end of life issues.
9	Intangible	Actions to promote the recognition and significance of aspects of human existence that have intrinsic value at the end of life	Spiritual care, therapies to promote dignity and compassion, to enhance the meaning of suffering, provide mutual support.
10	Self- determined	Actions, decisions or choices made by individuals to engage in or refrain from something that has implications for them at the end of their life or the life of another	Voluntary refusal of life prolonging procedures, treatment, food and fluids, ‘rational suicide’, self-care and support.