ArticleBMC palliative care2014
Hospitalizations of cancer patients in the last month of life: quality indicator scores reveal large variation between four European countries in a mortality follow-back study.
Article in BMC palliative care, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Hospitalizations and re-hospitalizations at the end-of-life among cancer patients; a retrospective register data study.BMC palliative care · 2024Article
- Online learning in palliative care education of undergraduate medical students: a realist synthesis.Palliative care and social practice · 2023Article
- Article
- A Stakeholder-Driven Qualitative Study to Define High Quality End-of-Life Care for Children With Cancer.Journal of pain and symptom management · 2021Article
- Cancer and end of life: the management provided during the year and the month preceding death in 2015 and causes of death in France.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2020Article
- Hospitalisation at the end of life among cancer and non-cancer patients in Denmark: a nationwide register-based cohort study.BMJ open · 2020Article
- Conceptualizing and Counting Discretionary Utilization in the Final 100 Days of Life: A Scoping Review.Journal of pain and symptom management · 2020Article
- Management and intensity of medical end-of-life care in people with colorectal cancer during the year before their death in 2015: A French national observational study.Cancer medicine · 2019Observational
- Impact of intensity and timing of integrated home palliative cancer care on end-of-life hospitalization in Northern Italy.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2017Article
- Intensity of Care, Expenditure, and Place of Death in French Women in the Year Before Their Death From Breast Cancer: A Population-Based Study.Cancer control : journal of the Moffitt Cancer CenterArticle
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 8 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundRepeated and long hospitalizations of cancer patients at the end of life have been suggested as indicators of low quality of palliative care. Comparing the care delivered between different countries with the help of these quality indicators may identify opportunities to improve practice. Our objective is twofold: firstly, to describe the scores for the existing quality indicators "the percentage of time spent in hospital" and "the proportion of adult patients with more than one hospitalization in the last 30 days of life" in populations of cancer patients in four European countries and to see whether these countries met previously defined performance standards; secondly, to assess whether these scores are related to receiving palliative care from their GP.
methodsA mortality follow-back study was conducted, based on data recorded by representative GP networks for samples of cancer patients living at home who died non-suddenly in Belgium (n = 500), the Netherlands (n = 310), Italy (n = 764), and Spain (n = 224).
resultsThe quality indicator score for "the percentage of time spent in hospital" in the last month of life was 14.1% in the Netherlands, 17.7% in Spain, 22.2% in Italy, and 24.6% in Belgium, which means that none of the countries met the performance standard of <10%. For the "proportion of patients with more than one hospitalization in the last 30 days of life", two countries met the performance standard of <4%: the Netherlands (0.6%) and Italy (3.1%). Spain had a score of 4.0% and Belgium scored 5.4%. When patients received palliative care from their GP, significantly less time was spent in hospital in the last month and fewer hospitalizations took place.
conclusionsEuropean countries differ regarding the frequency and duration of hospitalizations of cancer patients in the last month of life. This reflects country-specific differences in the organization of palliative care and highlights the important role of the GP in palliative care provision.
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