• Maria C De Korte-Verhoef, H Roeline W Pasman, Bart Pm Schweitzer, Anneke L Francke, Bregje D Onwuteaka-Philipsen, and Luc Deliens.
• Department of Public and Occupational Health & Expertise Center Palliative Care VUmc, EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University Medical Center (VUmc), Amsterdam, The Netherlands eol@vumc.nl.
• Palliat Med. 2014 Jul 1; 28 (7): 949-958.

BackgroundMany patients are hospitalized in the last months of life. Little is known about the avoidability of these hospitalizations.AimTo explore whether and how hospitalizations could have been avoided in the last 3 months of life and barriers to avoid this, according to general practitioners in the Netherlands.DesignSequential mixed-method design, starting with a cross-sectional nationwide questionnaire study among general practitioners, followed by in-depth interviews.Setting/ParticipantsGeneral practitioners were asked about their most recent patient who died non-suddenly and who was hospitalized in the last 3 months of life. Additionally, 18 of these general practitioners were interviewed in depth about the situation surrounding hospitalization.ResultsAccording to 24% of 319 general practitioners, the last hospitalization in the final 3 months of their patient's life could have been avoided. Of all avoidable hospitalizations, 46% could have been avoided by proactive communication with the patient, 36% by more communication between professionals around hospitalization, 28% by additional care and treatment at home, and 10% by patient and family support. In the in-depth interviews, general practitioners confirmed the aforementioned strategies, but also mentioned various barriers in daily practice, such as the timing of proactive communication with the patient, incompleteness of information transfer in acute situations, and the lack of awareness among patients and family that death was near.ConclusionA proactive approach could avoid some of the hospitalizations at the end of life, in the opinion of general practitioners. More insight is needed into communication and psychological barriers for timely discussions about end-of-life issues.© The Author(s) 2014.

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