Call For Abstracts – Palliative Care

Call For Abstracts for the 2025 South African Palliative Care Conference

The call for abstracts for the South African Palliative Care Conference 2025 has been issued.

The conference aims to reach out and to welcome professionals and other healthcare providers from a broad diversity of vocations whose work brings them in contact with patients across all ages with life-threatening and life-limiting conditions.

A significant component of the conference programme will be abstract-driven, and we encourage you to submit work that introduces new and innovative ideas, concepts, research findings and advances to the field of adult and/or paediatric and/or palliative care systems, as well as analysis of both success and failure. We invite all forms of research, studies and reports.

The focus of the conference will be on the imperative for palliative care to be inclusive, innovative, solution focused, and an integral component of all healthcare provision.

Revolution: Calling for fundamental transformation of the existing status quo to ensure palliative care is viewed as an obligation of the healthcare system, equal in value to preventative, curative and rehabilitative care.

Evolution: Celebrating palliative care models evolving to better serve the needs of a diverse South African population, encompassing communities of every age, culture, belief system and socioeconomic status.

Solution: Illuminating innovative problem solving within programmes addressing barriers to the provision of quality palliative care for all.

The conference programme will include workshops, panel discussions, plenary and parallel presentations and will be compiled with due consideration by the multidisciplinary Scientific Committees.

We invite you to submit abstracts for presentation at the conference. Abstracts can be submitted either as an oral or as a poster presentation and the final decision on the format will be made by the Scientific Committees.

Please note, the deadline for abstract submission is 16 February 2025.

Dr Samantha Govender & Tracey Brand
Paediatric Palliative Care Co-Chairs
Scientific Committee

Dr Thilo Govender & Dr Colleen Cox
Adult Palliative Care Co-Chairs
Scientific Committee

Important Information About Abstracts

A significant part of the conference programme will be built around accepted abstracts which will also be published in an online programme before the conference. The abstract provides written information about each presentation and allows reviewers and the Scientific Committees to decide upon the quality of the research/topic and its suitability for inclusion in the scientific programme.

Preference will be given to abstracts not previously published in any national or international journal or presented at any international conference.

A list of thematic tracks will be provided to group abstracts. Abstracts may fit more than one track, but a single category should be selected. The Scientific Committee may re-categorise the abstract in order to shape the final programme.

Authors must indicate their preference for oral/poster presentation or poster presentation only. Oral presentations will be strictly limited to 15 minutes with 5 minutes allocated for Q & A. The final decision about the type of presentation will be made by the Scientific Committee.

The presenting author is expected to attend the conference to deliver the oral presentation or present the poster. The submission of an abstract does not replace registration for the conference. The presenting author must register and pay for their attendance at the conference before 16 May 2025.

Abstracts may only be submitted using the electronic abstract form on the conference website. Once the electronic submission is concluded the corresponding author will receive a confirmation by email with an abstract number to which he/she will need to refer in any correspondence regarding the submission.

After the reviewing process, the Scientific Committee will allocate the accepted abstracts to poster or oral presentation. The corresponding author will be notified by email of the decision of the Scientific Committee and will be responsible for informing the other authors about the status of the abstract. The Scientific Committee reserves the right to make the final decision on abstracts.

Abstract Deadlines

Criteria For Abstract Submission

The abstract text cannot exceed 300 words.
Abstracts must be written in English, explained abbreviations may be used.
The number of authors should not exceed eight.
Research based abstracts must be structured and comply with Good Clinical Practice.
References are not required. If supplied, they are included in the word count.
Generic drug names should be preferred. The use of trade names is discouraged and should only be used when necessary.
Only one table may be included per abstract.
Preference will be given to abstracts that have not been published at a previous national or international conference.
To avoid issues with copyright, your abstract may not have been published previously in any international or national journal.

Submission Option 1:

Suited for abstracts with concise descriptions of research and related studies on palliative care and include aim, methods used, results and conclusions.

Abstracts should clearly state:

Background-context-aims
Indicate the purpose and objective of the research, the hypothesis that was tested or a description of the problem discussed.
Methods
Describe the setting/location for the study, study design, study population, ethical considerations, data collection and methods of statistical analysis.
Results
Present as clearly and detailed as possible the findings/outcome of the study, with specific results in summarised form.
Conclusions
Briefly describe the data and main outcome/s of the study as well as its possible limitations. Emphasise the implications of the results and their significance for the treatment, care and/or support of patients and their families affected by life-limiting or life-threatening illness.

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Submission Option 2:

Suited for case studies and lessons learned through programme or project implementation or management. Abstracts submitted under the second option should contain concise statements on the background, description, lessons learned and conclusions or next steps. These abstracts can describe real world case studies or implementation science.

Abstracts should clearly state:

Background
Summarise the purpose, scope and objectives, of the programme, project or policy.
Description
Describe the programme, project or policy period / setting / location, the structure, key population (if applicable), activities and interventions undertaken in support of the programme, project or policy.
Lessons learned
Present as clearly and in as much detail as possible the findings / outcomes of the programme, project or policy; include an analysis or evaluation of lessons learned and best practices. Please summarize any specific results that support your lessons learned and best practices.
Conclusions/Next steps
Explain the significance of your findings / outcomes of the programme, project or policy, treatment, care and / or support, and future implications of the results.

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Submit an Abstract

Before submitting your abstract, please note the following important information:

Clicking on the ‘Submit your Abstract’ button will take you to the Conftools page outside of this website.
If you submitted an abstract for the previous conference, log into your account by clicking on ‘Account’ in the top right corner and enter your email and password. There is a ‘Forgot my Password’ option, should you need it.
If this is your first time submitting an abstract, you will need to sign up for a new account.
Once signed into your account, please go ahead and write your abstract. You are able to edit your abstract by logging into your account at any time before it has been submitted.
Please only upload additional documents supplementary to your abstract if absolutely necessary. Only one per abstract is allowed.