ArticleBMC family practice2013
GPs' recognition of death in the foreseeable future and diagnosis of a fatal condition: a national survey.
Article in BMC family practice, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Appropriate Timing of End-of-Life Care: A Dutch Policy Analysis and Opportunities for Improvement.Palliative medicine reports · 2024Article
- Effectiveness of Palliative Care before Death in Reducing Emergency Care Utilization for Patients with Terminal Cancer and Trends in the Utilization of Palliative Care from 2005-2018.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Evaluating quality of care at the end of life and setting best practice performance standards: a population-based observational study using linked routinely collected administrative databases.BMC palliative care · 2022Observational
- General practitioners' provision of end-of-life care and associations with dying at home: a registry-based longitudinal study.Family practice · 2020Article
- Palliative care for patients with cancer: do patients receive the care they consider important? A survey study.BMC palliative care · 2018Article
- How do treatment aims in the last phase of life relate to hospitalizations and hospital mortality? A mortality follow-back study of Dutch patients with five types of cancer.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2018Article
- Article
- "It is not the fading candle that one expects": general practitioners' perspectives on life-preserving versus "letting go" decision-making in end-of-life home care.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundNowadays, palliative care is considered as a care continuum that may start early in the course of the disease. In order to address the evolving needs of patients for palliative care in time, GPs should be aware in good time of the diagnosis and of the imminence of death. The aim of the study was to gain insight into how long before a non-sudden death the diagnosis of the disease ultimately leading to death is made and on what kind of information the diagnosis is based. In addition, we aimed to explore when, and based on what kind of information, GPs become aware that death of a patient will be in the foreseeable future.
methodsA written questionnaire focusing on the GPs' experiences with their last patient who died non-suddenly was sent to a random representative sample of 850 GPs in the Netherlands.
resultsThe data were analysed of the 297 GPs who responded. 76% of the reported cases were cancer patients and 24% were patients with another non-sudden cause of death. The diagnosis was made only in the last week of life for 15% of the non-cancer patients and 1% of the patients with cancer. GPs were most likely to have been informed of the diagnosis by the medical specialist, although particularly in the case of non-cancer patients GPs also relied on their own assessment of the diagnosis or on other information sources.The GP remained unaware that the patient would die in the foreseeable future until the last week of life in 26% of the non-cancer group, while this was the case for only 6% of the cancer patients. GP's awareness was most likely to be based on the GP's own observations of problems and/or symptoms.
conclusionsThe GP often only becomes aware of a fatal diagnosis and of death in the foreseeable future at a late stage in the disease trajectory, particularly in the case of non-cancer patients. It can be assumed that if the diagnosis and the nearing death are only recognised at a late stage, palliative care is either started at a very late stage or not at all.
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