Participants

We conducted a cross-sectional online survey from January to December 2017 to validate the Chinese versions of the CES and Good Death Inventory [19]. Participants were recruited by convenience sampling from 10 medical institutes including 7 oncology departments in general hospitals, 1 cancer center, 1 community hospital, and 1 palliative care unit of a general hospital, all of which provide end-of-life cancer care. The minimum sample size was estimated as 140 based on a minimum subject-to-item ratio of 5:1 to meet the requirements of factor analysis [20].

The inclusion criteria were as follows: deceased cancer patients aged ≥ 18 years who had been hospitalized for ≥ 72 h; bereaved family members aged ≥ 18 years who were the self-identified main caregivers of the patients, had basic ability in Chinese reading and writing and were able to complete the questionnaire [19]. The exclusion criteria were: patients died in the intensive care unit or died of treatment-related conditions (e.g. surgical complication, severe drug allergy, etc.); bereaved family members who could not be contacted by telephone or refused to participate in the study [19].