Meeting Current and Future Aged Care Needs of Regional and Rural Communities Through the Multipurpose Service Model - A Scoping Review.

Palliative care represents a proactive and comprehensive approach that shifts the focus from disease treatment to the patient–family dyad, recognizing that psychological adjustment, emotional suffering and quality of life are deeply influenced by the availability and organization of social and caregiving relationships. This model demands rigorous multidisciplinary action to manage the physical, psychological and social dimensions of the care plan, with a particular emphasis on the structure and dynamics of the support network []. Care networks can be categorized as primary or secondary, distinguished by the nature of the exchanges and bonds established []. Primary networks, predominantly anchored in familial and affective ties, such as friends and neighbours, are characterized by bonds of trust and reciprocity []. Understanding the composition, proximity and caregiving capacity of these networks is fundamental to designing a person‐centered care plan tailored to individual needs []. However, the support needs of family caregivers are frequently underestimated in clinical practice, despite consistent evidence that caregiving burden, emotional distress and lack of preparedness significantly affect both caregiver well‐being and patient outcomes in advanced illness. Recent evidence shows that caregivers of individuals with serious illness often experience a mismatch between expected and received support, highlighting the need to assess not only perceived support but also the structural and relational dimensions of caregiving networks []. Studies demonstrate that the use of assessment instruments, such as the Carer Support Needs Assessment Tool (CSNAT), can improve communication and reduce burden in palliative settings []. Nevertheless, even well‐validated measures of social support have focused primarily on perception and functional aspects, rather than on the structural configuration and sustainability of care networks []. Scoping reviews of caregiver interventions also highlight that measurement tools rarely capture the relational dynamics of caregiving networks, which may limit the identification of psychosocial risk factors for both caregivers and patients []. In Brazil, and to a large extent internationally, the development of tools specifically designed to evaluate the structural configuration and functional capacity of caregiving networks in palliative care remains limited. To address this gap, the Brazilian National Cancer Institute (INCA) developed the Primary Care Network Assessment Scale for Palliative Care Patients (ARCP) in 2016, and was later incorporated into institutional palliative care practice. Although routinely used in clinical assessments, no formal content validation or evaluation of its clinical utility had been conducted.