scholarly journals Likelihood of death among hospital inpatients in New Zealand: prevalent cohort study

BMJ Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. e016880 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merryn Gott ◽  
Joanna Broad ◽  
Xian Zhang ◽  
Lene Jarlbaek ◽  
David Clark

Objectives(1) To establish the likelihood of dying within 12 months for a cohort of hospital inpatients in New Zealand (NZ) on a fixed census date; (2) to identify associations between likelihood of death and key sociodemographic, diagnostic and service-related factors and (3) to compare results with, and extend findings of, a Scottish study undertaken for the same time period and census date. National databases of hospitalisations and death registrations were used, linked by unique health identifier.Participants6074 patients stayed overnight in NZ hospitals on the census date (10 April 2013), 40.8% of whom were aged ≥65 years; 54.4% were women; 69.1% of patients were NZ European; 15.3% were Maori; 7.6% were Pacific; 6.1% were Asian and 1.9% were ‘other’.SettingAll NZ hospitals.Results14.5% patients (n=878) had died within 12 months: 1.6% by 7 days; 4.5% by 30 days; 8.0% by 3 months and 10.9% by 6 months. In logistic regression models, the strongest predictors of death within 12 months were: age ≥80 years (OR=5.52(95% CI 4.31 to 7.07)); a history of cancer (OR=4.20(3.53 to 4.98)); being Māori (OR=1.62(1.25 to 2.10)) and being admitted to a medical specialty, compared with a surgical specialty (OR=3.16(2.66 to 3.76)).ConclusionWhile hospitals are an important site of end of life care in NZ, their role is less significant than in Scotland, where 30% of an inpatient cohort recruited using similar methods and undertaken on the same census date had died within 12 months. One reason for this finding may be the extended role of residential long-term care facilities in end of life care provision in NZ.

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 16-17
Author(s):  
Molly Perkins ◽  
Ann Vandenberg ◽  
Candace Kemp ◽  
Mary Ball ◽  
Joanna Jungerman ◽  
...  

Abstract Limited empirical evidence suggests that caregiver burden is greater for informal care partners (family and friends) in assisted living (AL) compared with other long-term care settings, particularly within context of end of life. Using qualitative data from a larger 5-year, 7-site study of end-of-life care in AL funded by the National Institute on Aging (R01AG047408), we investigate informal care partners’ involvement in end-of-life care and identify challenges related to informal caregiving that might contribute to care burden. Grounded theory analysis of ethnographic data and in-depth interviews (average interview length = 97 minutes) with 59 racially and ethnically diverse informal care partners (mean age = 60) shows that informal care partner involvement in end-of-life care varies across participants and over time and is shaped by multiple intersecting social and structural determinants. At individual levels, these include many personal, situational, and relational factors. Personal factors include but are not limited to care partners’ own physical and mental health and material resources (e.g., ability to pay for supplementary care). Situational and relational factors include care partners’ awareness (or lack thereof) of residents’ impending death and the quality of the caregiving relationship. AL and wider community-level factors include understaffing, staff turnover, inadequate hospice support, and lack of access to these services. We find that informal care partners navigate these caregiving challenges through a basic social process we conceptualize as “negotiating risks.” Strategies for easing caregiver burden and improving informal care partner and resident quality of life at end of life are implicated.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomoko Terada ◽  
Keiko Nakamura ◽  
Kaoruko Seino ◽  
Masashi Kizuki ◽  
Naohiko Inase

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinyi Xu ◽  
Shu-Wen Tu ◽  
Chia-Chin Lin

Abstract Background The proportion of hospital deaths has declined in the past few decades, while the proportions of nursing home deaths have increased. This trend of increasing deaths in long-term care facilities underlines the importance of improving end-of-life care provisions in these settings to meet individual preferences and needs. Under these circumstances, a comprehensive understanding of end-of-life care preferences in local nursing home residents can help healthcare professionals and policymakers develop strategies to increase the advance directive completion rate and quality of care. This study aimed to explore and compare advance directive and end-of-life care preferences of nursing home residents in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Methods A structured questionnaire was developed by the research team to investigate advance directive and end-of-life care preferences in older Chinese nursing home residents. Nursing home residents with frail or pre-frail status and over the age of 64 were invited to participate in the study, and information on demographics, functional status, advance directive experiences, and end-of-life care expectations was collected through questionnaire interviews. Results A total of 325 eligible participants from 32 facilities completed the survey, including 238 older residents in Hong Kong and 87 in Taiwan. A significantly lower proportion of the Hong Kong residents had completed an advance directive compared with the Taiwanese (3 vs. 13%, p = 0.001). Among participants who did not have an advance directive, 46% of the Taiwanese participants said they would consider completing one in the future, compared with 20% of the Hong Kong participants (p < 0.001). A total of 79% of the Hong Kong participants and 80% of the Taiwanese participants responded that prolonging life in the given hypothetical dying scenario was “not important” (p = 0.76). Only 14% of participants in Hong Kong and 18% of participants in Taiwan reported prior occurrence of end-of-life care discussions with family members or health professionals (p = 0.37). Conclusions This paper adds evidence in support of improving end-of-life communication and the advance directive completion rate in nursing homes in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Further research is necessary to explore cross-cultural differences in end-of-life preferences and its applications in predicting decision-making and the quality of end-of-life care.


2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lori Seller ◽  
Marie-Ève Bouthillier ◽  
Veronique Fraser

BackgroundMedical aid in dying (MAiD) was introduced in Quebec in 2015. Quebec clinical guidelines recommend that MAiD be approached as a last resort when other care options are insufficient; however, the law sets no such requirement. To date, little is known about when and how requests for MAiD are situated in the broader context of decision-making in end-of-life care; the timing of MAiD raises potential ethical issues.MethodsA retrospective chart review of all MAiD requests between December 2015 and June 2017 at two Quebec hospitals and one long-term care centre was conducted to explore the relationship between routine end-of-life care practices and the timing of MAiD requests.ResultsOf 80 patients requesting MAiD, 54% (43) received the intervention. The median number of days between the request for MAiD and the patient’s death was 6 days. The majority of palliative care consults (32%) came less than 7 days prior to the MAiD request and in another 25% of cases occurred the day of or after MAiD was requested. 35% of patients had no level of intervention form, or it was documented as 1 or 2 (prolongation of life remains a priority) at the time of the MAiD request and 19% were receiving life-prolonging interventions.InterpretationWe highlight ethical considerations relating to the timing of MAiD requests within the broader context of end-of-life care. Whether or not MAiD is conceptualised as morally distinct from other end-of-life options is likely to influence clinicians’ approach to requests for MAiD as well as the ethical importance of our findings. We suggest that in the wake of the 2015 legislation, requests for MAiD have not always appeared to come after an exploration of other options as professional practice guidelines recommend.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chizuru Nagata ◽  
Hironori Yada ◽  
Junko Inagaki

In Japan, the number of elderly people who require long-term care is increasing as a result of the country’s aging population. Consequently, the burden experienced by caregivers who provide end-of-life care at home has become a social problem. This study aimed to confirm the factor structure of such caregiver burden by analyzing the Japanese version of the Zarit Caregiver Burden Interview (J-ZBI). The J-ZBI was administered to 389 caregivers providing end-of-life care, and 247 answers were analyzed, with exploratory factor analysis performed on the results. Consequently, a four-factor structure emerged (sacrificing life, personal strain, severe anxiety, and captivity); these four factors, constituting 15 items, were cumulatively named “J-ZBI_15.” In regard to reliability, Cronbach’sαcoefficient for each factor was high; in terms of validity, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine the four-factor structure, and the goodness of model fit was determined to be satisfactory. Further, the convergent validity was also high. The care burden experienced by those providing end-of-life care at home differs from the burden of caregivers of individuals with other diseases, such as Alzheimer’s. For assessing the burden felt by this population, the 15-item four-factor ZBI model is more appropriate than the single-factor 22-item ZBI, and we also determined that J-ZBI_8 is unsuitable for this task. Thus, measurement of family caregivers’ burden in regard to providing end-of-life care at home should be performed using the 15-item four-factor J-ZBI model.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S669-S669
Author(s):  
Kelly Shryock ◽  
Jacinta Dickens ◽  
Anisha Thomas ◽  
Suzanne Meeks

Abstract Research on end-of-life care in nursing homes comes largely from the viewpoint of staff or family members. We examined patient perspectives on end-of-life care, preferences for care, and quality of life in long-term care settings. We hypothesized that fulfillment of the Self Determination Theory (SDT) needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness would be related to better well-being and that the degree to which end-of-life care preferences are seen as possible in the setting would be related to SDT need fulfillment and well-being. Preliminary data, collected from older individuals at the end of life (over 55, presence of significant chronic disease, in long term care setting) (n= 72), demonstrated that autonomy, competence, and relatedness measures were moderately and significantly correlated with well-being as measured by life satisfaction, higher positive affect, lower negative affect, and overall quality of life measures The degree to which residents believed that their end-of-life care preferences could be honored in the setting was also significantly correlated with autonomy, competence, relatedness, positive affect, and psychological quality of life. These results are consistent with SDT and suggest that if long term care settings can promote autonomy, connection, and competence in making end of life decisions, possibly by discovering and fulfilling preferences for end of life care, individuals who end their lives on those settings have potential for greater satisfaction and happiness. These results suggest that SDT is a useful framework for ongoing research on how to improve the end of life experiences of older adults in long term care.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rusna Tahir ◽  
Henny Suzana Mediani ◽  
Etika Emaliyawati ◽  
Iqra S

2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole Gill ◽  
Loretta M. Hillier ◽  
Jacqueline M. Crandall ◽  
Julie Johnston

BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. e037466
Author(s):  
Patricia Harasym ◽  
Sarah Brisbin ◽  
Misha Afzaal ◽  
Aynharan Sinnarajah ◽  
Lorraine Venturato ◽  
...  

ObjectiveThe COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted ongoing challenges to optimal supportive end-of-life care for adults living in long-term care (LTC) facilities. A supportive end-of-life care approach emphasises family involvement, optimal symptom control, multidisciplinary team collaboration and death and bereavement support services for residents and families. Community-based and palliative care specialist physicians who visit residents in LTC facilities play an important role in supportive end-of-life care. Yet, perspectives, experiences and perceptions of these physicians remain unknown. The objective of this study was to explore barriers and facilitators to optimal supportive end-of-life palliative care in LTC through the experiences and perceptions of community-based and palliative specialist physicians who visit LTC facilities.DesignQualitative study using semi-structured interviews, basic qualitative description and directed content analysis using the COM-B (capability, opportunity, motivation - behaviour) theoretical framework.SettingResidential long-term care.Participants23 physicians who visit LTC facilities from across Alberta, Canada, including both in urban and rural settings of whom 18 were community-based physicians and 5 were specialist palliative care physicians.ResultsMotivation barriers include families’ lack of frailty knowledge, unrealistic expectations and emotional reactions to grief and uncertainty. Capability barriers include lack of symptom assessment tools, as well as palliative care knowledge, training and mentorship. Physical and social design barriers include lack of dedicated spaces for death and bereavement, inadequate staff, and mental health and spiritual services of insufficient scope for the population.ConclusionFindings reveal that validating families’ concerns, having appropriate symptom assessment tools, providing mentorship in palliative care and adapting the physical and social environment to support dying and grieving with dignity facilitates supportive, end-of-life care within LTC.


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