Abstract
The paper investigates the quality of life of hospice patients and with this aim lays out and discusses the results of a number of studies conducted on the subject during the last twelve years. We analyze the nature and constituents of the quality of life in hospice which appears to be twofold involving care after the patients and support offered to caregivers and consists of medical, social, emotional, psychological, ethic, spiritual, financial and other aspects. Overall, the results of the studies indicate that hospice patients tend to live longer and suffer less than outpatients. However, we describe a number of weak points of the hospice system which discourage people from receiving hospice care. We also touched upon several prejudices associated with hospice and their cultural and socioeconomic reasons.

Introduction
Ensuring high quality of life for terminally ill and often aged patients in hospice is a challenging yet paramount task. In the USA, the problem is really urgent for modern healthcare and thus needs close attention. Hospice healthcare is presumably the most difficult sphere to review and estimate because despite all the achievements in medical knowledge and technology, we all die and sometimes the process is accompanied by bitter sufferings. Although there are certain difficulties in estimating the quality of life encountered by researched which are to be mentioned later, we can picture the situation quite comprehensively. First of all, it should be mentioned that in order to provide higher quality of life in hospice one has to address two aspects: (a) giving medical and emotional support to patients; (b) helping caregivers, i.e. the patient’s close people who take care of him or her. Each aspect can be subdivided into a number of items including physical, psychological, philosophical, social etc. help. In this paper, we will investigate some peculiarities of research work in this sphere, the requirements for quality of life (what it should be like and what it consists of), and, finally, the components of hospice patients care (what it takes to provide quality of life in hospice).

Quality of Life in Hospice Studies of the Late 1990-s
In the late 1990-s, SUPPORT (Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatment) – a research on hospice healthcare – showed that hospice patients were far from getting the care needed for dying patients. The research was aimed at improving decision-making in case of the terminally ill which was primarily associated with relieving their pain and reducing suffering. Still, later research conducted by M. Bretscher et al. showed that the SUPPORT missed on some positive facts about hospice healthcare. An extensive National Hospice Study of 1998 worked out a complex of measurement tools to estimate different aspects of quality of life in hospice.  These included performance status, patient’s awareness, emotional and social quality of life, satisfaction with care, pain, and global quality of life. However, the technique applied by the researchers seemed imperfect as the results appeared discordant. For instance, a reduced performance status was not accompanied by a decline in social and emotional quality of life and a lowering pain level did not correlate with emotional crisis. Other studies on the subject also indicated that psychological state of a patient does not obligatory correspond to the physical one. It means that such multilateral notion as quality of life must be addressed and estimated in as great number of aspects as possible to reveal their interconnection. Such comprehensive approach will benefit the hospice personnel indicating the elements which make up the quality of life.