Researchers at Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg Publish New Data on Palliative Care (Characteristics and place of death in home care recipients in Germany – an analysis of nationwide health insurance claims data): Health and Medicine – Palliative Care

Health Policy and Law Daily

2022 OCT 20 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health Policy and Law Daily -- Investigators publish new report on palliative care. According to news reporting out of Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg by NewsRx editors, research stated, “Most care-dependent people live at home, where they also would prefer to die. Unfortunately, this wish is often not fulfilled.”

Funders for this research include Carl Von Ossietzky Universitat Oldenburg.

Our news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg: “This study aims to investigate place of death of home care recipients, taking characteristics and changes in care settings into account. We retrospectively analysed a cohort of all home-care receiving people of a German statutory health insurance who were at least 65 years and who deceased between January 2016 and June 2019. Next to the care need, duration of care, age, sex, and disease, care setting at death and place of death were considered. We examined the characteristics by place of care, the proportion of dying in hospital by care setting and characterised the deceased cohort stratified by their actual place of death. Of 46,207 care-dependent people initially receiving home care, 57.5% died within 3.5 years (n = 26,590; mean age: 86.8; 66.6% female). More than half of those moved to another care setting before death with long-term nursing home care (32.3%) and short-term nursing home care (11.7%) being the most frequent transitions, while 48.1% were still cared for at home. Overall, 36.9% died in hospital and in-hospital deaths were found most often in those still receiving home care (44.7%) as well as care in semi-residential arrangements (43.9%) at the time of death. People who died in hospital were younger (mean age: 85.5 years) and with lower care dependency (low care need: 28.2%) as in all other analysed care settings.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “In Germany, changes in care settings before death occur often. The proportion of in-hospital death is particularly high in the home setting and in semi-residential arrangements. These settings should be considered in interventions aiming to decrease the number of unwished care transitions and hospitalisations at the end of life.”

For more information on this research see: Characteristics and place of death in home care recipients in Germany - an analysis of nationwide health insurance claims data. BMC Palliative Care, 2022,21(1):1-8. (BMC Palliative Care - http://bmcpalliatcare.biomedcentral.com). The publisher for BMC Palliative Care is BMC.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-022-01060-w.

Our news editors report that more information may be obtained by contacting Rieke Schnakenberg, Faculty of Medicine and Health Siences, Department of Health Services Research, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg. Additional authors for this research include Alexander Maximilian Fassmer, Katharina Allers, Falk Hoffmann.

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