Initially, 43 unique articles were identified and after full-text review, data was extracted from 31 articles. Figure 1 shows the search results using the PRISMA Flow Diagram Tool. Most articles were excluded because they did not focus on palliative or end-of-life care and/or the population of interest.

Flowchart of search results

Table 1 presents the key elements of the data extracted from reviewed articles.

The thirty-one articles reviewed included research publications (n = 15) [3, 19,20,21,22, 24, 25, 27, 29, 34,35,36, 39, 40, 42], informal literature reviews (n = 11) [4, 5, 23, 26, 30,31,32,33, 38, 41, 43], and formal literature reviews (n = 5) [15,16,17, 28, 37]. Research articles varied in study design, with the majority using mixed methods (n = 6) [3, 19, 22, 24, 34, 36] or qualitative designs (n = 6) [20, 21, 27, 35, 40, 42]. There were three quantitative studies [25, 29, 39].

Original research studies were conducted in community [3, 21, 24, 27, 36, 42], hospital [22, 25, 40] or hospice [29, 35] settings, though some were conducted in multiple settings [20, 39]. One study was conducted with professionals in PC organizations [19]. Overall, sample sizes ranged from a single participant [40] to 867 participants [22], with mixed methods studies having the largest samples on average. Authors reported on a variety of characteristics, including age [3, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 29, 39, 42], sex [22, 34], gender [19, 25, 27, 35], gender identity [20, 34,35,36], sexual orientation [19, 25, 36, 39, 42], marital status [24, 27, 34], race/ethnicity [20, 24, 25, 29, 34,35,36], education [25, 34, 42], occupation [19, 39], income [24, 25, 29], rural/urban status [19, 34, 36], religion [19], and disability status [25, 36].

Among original studies, half of the publications (n = 9) came from the USA [19, 21, 25, 29, 34, 35, 39, 40, 42]. Research publications also came from Australia (n = 3) [22, 27, 36], Canada (n = 2) [3, 24], and the UK (n = 1) [20].

While all studies focused on sexual and gender minorities (SGM), the terminology used to describe the target populations varied greatly. The majority of studies focused on LGBTQ [4, 5, 23, 26,