Effectiveness of palliative care services: A population-based study of end-of-life care for cancer patients
Background: Multiple studies demonstrate substantial utilization of acute hospital care and, potentially excessive, intensive medical and surgical treatments at the end-of-life. Aim: To evaluate the relationship between the use of home and facility-based hospice palliative care for patients dying wi...
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Published in | Palliative medicine Vol. 32; no. 8; pp. 1344 - 1352 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
London, England
SAGE Publications
01.09.2018
Sage Publications Ltd |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Background:
Multiple studies demonstrate substantial utilization of acute hospital care and, potentially excessive, intensive medical and surgical treatments at the end-of-life.
Aim:
To evaluate the relationship between the use of home and facility-based hospice palliative care for patients dying with cancer and service utilization at the end of life.
Design:
Retrospective, population-level study using administrative databases. The effect of palliative care was analyzed between coarsened exact matched cohorts and evaluated through a conditional logistic regression model.
Setting/participants:
The study was conducted on the cohort of 34,357 patients, resident in Emilia-Romagna Region, Italy, admitted to hospital with a diagnosis of metastatic or poor-prognosis cancer during the 6 months before death between January 2013 and December 2015.
Results:
Patients who received palliative care experienced significantly lower rates of all indicators of aggressive care such as hospital admission (odds ratio (OR) = 0.05, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.04–0.06), emergency department visits (OR = 0.23, 95% CI: 0.21–0.25), intensive care unit stays (OR = 0.29, 95% CI: 0.26–0.32), major operating room procedures (OR = 0.22, 95% CI: 0.21–0.24), and lower in-hospital death (OR = 0.11, 95% CI: 0.10–0.11). This cohort had significantly higher rates of opiate prescriptions (OR = 1.27, 95% CI: 1.21–1.33) (p < 0.01 for all comparisons).
Conclusion:
Use of palliative care at the end of life for cancer patients is associated with a reduction of the use of high-cost, intensive services. Future research is necessary to evaluate the impact of increasing use of palliative care services on other health outcomes. Administrative databases linked at the patient level are a useful data source for assessment of care at the end of life. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0269-2163 1477-030X |
DOI: | 10.1177/0269216318778729 |