ArticleThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2013
Psychiatric comorbidity among terminally ill patients in general practice in the Netherlands: a comparison between patients with cancer and heart failure.
Article in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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3 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- The prevalence of anxiety symptoms/disorders in cancer patients: a meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Risk of suicide after diagnosis of severe physical health conditions: A retrospective cohort study of 47 million people.The Lancet regional health. Europe · 2023Article
- Use of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder medication among older adults in Denmark.British journal of clinical pharmacology · 2018Article
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5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
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Abstract
backgroundIt is unclear whether psychiatric disorders are specifically related to the terminal phase of cancer, or independent of the underlying disease.
aimTo investigate the rate of psychiatric comorbidity and psychotropic drugs prescription in terminally ill patients in the GP setting, comparing both patients with terminal cancer and heart failure. DESIGN AND
settingRetrospective cohort study using the Utrecht General Practitioner Research Network.
methodEqually-sized groups of patients with terminal cancer and heart failure were randomly selected from the database of four general practices over the years 2005-2009. Psychiatric comorbidities were determined using the International Classification for Primary Care (ICPC) codes and psychotropic drugs prescriptions using the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) Classification System codes.
resultsA total of 191 terminally ill patients were included in the study (111 with cancer and 80 with heart failure). The mean age for patients with terminal cancer (70.8 years, standard deviation [SD] = 12.8) was 15 years younger than that of patients with heart failure (85.6 years, SD = 9.2). Half of the terminally ill patients (50.3 %) were prescribed psychotropics, but only 13.6% of them had obtained a psychiatric diagnosis. There were no significant differences in prevalence of psychiatric disease and psychotropic drug prescription between patients with terminal cancer and heart failure.
conclusionThe results demonstrate a high use of psychotropic drugs in terminally ill patients, often in the absence of a formal diagnosis of a psychiatric disorder. The absence of differences between patients with cancer and heart failure suggests that psychiatric diagnoses and increased psychotropic prescriptions are primarily related to the terminal stage of the disease and not to the background of cancer or heart failure.
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