ArticleBMC health services research2014
A comparison of drugs and procedures of care in the Italian hospice and hospital settings: the final three days of life for cancer patients.
Article in BMC health services research, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Financial cost of end-of-life cancer care in palliative care units (PCUs) and non-PCUs in Iran: insights from low- and middle-income countries.Palliative care and social practice · 2024Article
- Prescribing practices, patterns, and potential harms in patients receiving palliative care: A systematic scoping review.Exploratory research in clinical and social pharmacy · 2021Article
- Conceptualizing and Counting Discretionary Utilization in the Final 100 Days of Life: A Scoping Review.Journal of pain and symptom management · 2020Article
- Continuing, Withdrawing, and Withholding Medical Treatment at the End of Life and Associated Characteristics: a Mortality Follow-back Study.Journal of general internal medicine · 2020Article
- The challenge of sustainability in healthcare systems: frequency and cost of diagnostic procedures in end-of-life cancer patients.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2018Article
- Age differences in the last week of life in advanced cancer patients followed at home.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundA palliative approach at the end of life typically involves forgoing certain drugs and procedures and starting others - weighing burden against potential benefit. An assessment of the palliative approach may be undertaken by investigating which drugs and procedures are used in the dying phase, and at what frequencies.
methodsDrugs were classified as potentially (in)appropriate based on expert classification. Procedures were classed as therapeutic or diagnostic. 271 consecutive cancer deaths from across 16 hospital general wards and 5 hospices in Italy gathered data on drugs and procedures in the final three days of life through a standardised form. Differences between the two groups were tested using chi-square testing, and logistic regressions were performed to control for patient characteristics.
results75.0% of patients in hospital received 3 or more potentially inappropriate drugs in their last three days of life, against 42.6% in hospice. Diagnostic procedures were carried out more frequently in hospital. Multivariate logistic regression showed that when data was controlled for patient characteristics, setting had a unique contribution to the differences found in use of drugs and procedures.
conclusionThe data indicates a need for improvement in the hospital setting concerning recognising the need for palliative care, and ensuring a timely introduction of this approach.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.