• Palliative medicine · Jul 2014

    Terminal cancer patients' and their primary caregivers' attitudes toward hospice/palliative care and their effects on actual utilization: A prospective cohort study.

    • Ah Reum An, June-Koo Lee, Young Ho Yun, and Dae Seog Heo.
    • Department of Family Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
    • Palliat Med. 2014 Jul 1; 28 (7): 976-985.

    BackgroundPrevious studies on hospice/palliative care indicated that patients' socio-demographic factors, disease status, and availability of health-care resources were associated with hospice/palliative care utilization. However, the impact of family caregivers on hospice/palliative care utilization has not been thoroughly investigated.AimTo evaluate the association between attitudes toward hospice/palliative care of both patients with terminal cancer (defined as progressive, advanced cancer in which the patient will die within months) and their family caregivers and utilization of inpatient hospice/palliative care facilities.DesignA prospective observational cohort study was performed in 12 hospitals in South Korea. Attitude toward hospice/palliative care was assessed immediately after terminal cancer diagnosis. After the patient's death, caregivers were interviewed whether they utilized hospice/palliative care facilities.ParticipantsA total of 359 patient-caregiver dyads completed baseline questionnaires. After the patients' death, 257 caregivers were interviewed.ResultsAt the baseline questionnaire, 137/359 (38.2%) patients and 185/359 (51.5%) of caregivers preferred hospice/palliative care. Preference for hospice/palliative care was associated with awareness of terminal status among both patients (adjusted odds ratio: 1.87, 95% confidence interval: 1.16-3.03) and caregivers (adjusted odds ratio: 2.14, 95% confidence interval: 1.20-3.81). Religion, metastasis, and poor performance status were also independently associated with patient preference for hospice/palliative care. At the post-bereavement interview, 104/257 (40.5%) caregivers responded that they utilized hospice/palliative care facilities. Caregiver's preferences for hospice/palliative care were significantly associated with actual utilization (adjusted odds ratio: 2.67, 95% confidence interval: 1.53-4.67). No patient-related factors were associated with hospice/palliative care utilization.ConclusionPromoting awareness of prognosis and to improve communication between doctors and families is important for facilitating the use of hospice/palliative care.© The Author(s) 2014.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…