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Abstract
Objective Evidence is mixed regarding the impact of advance care planning (ACP) on place of death. This cohort study investigated the effect of ACP programmes on place of death and utilisation of life-sustaining treatments for patients during end-of-life (EOL) care.
Methods This prospective cohort study identified deceased patients between 2015 and 2016 at Taipei City Hospital. ACP was determined by patients’ medical records and defined as a process to discuss patients’ preferences with respect to EOL treatments and place of death. Place of death included hospital or home death. Stepwise logistic regression determined the association of ACP with place of death and utilisation of life-sustaining treatments during EOL care.
Results Of the 3196 deceased patients, the overall mean age was 78.6 years, and 46.5% of the subjects had an ACP communication with healthcare providers before death. During the study follow-up period, 166 individuals died at home, including 98 (6.59%) patients with ACP and 68 (3.98%) patients without ACP. After adjusting for sociodemographic factors and comorbidities, patients with ACP were more likely to die at home during EOL care (adjusted OR (AOR)=1.71, 95% CI 1.24 to 2.35). Moreover, patients with ACP were less likely to receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (AOR 0.36, 95% CI 0.25 to 0.51) as well as intubation and mechanical ventilation support (AOR 0.54, 95% CI 0.44 to 0.67) during the last 3 months of life.
Conclusion Patients with ACP were more likely to die at home and less likely to receive life-sustaining treatments during EOL care.
- end of life care
- hospice care
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Footnotes
Y-FY, Y-LL and H-YH contributed equally.
Contributors Y-FY, Y-LL, H-YH, W-JS, M-CK, S-SC, C-CC, S-JH and DC substantially contributed to the conception and design of the study, data analysis, data interpretation and the drafting of the manuscript. Y-FY, Y-LL, H-YH, W-JS, M-CK, S-JH and DC substantially contributed to data acquisition and interpretation of the results. Y-FY, Y-LL, H-YH, W-JS, M-CK, S-SC, C-CC, S-JH and DC all approved the final version of the manuscript.
Funding This study was supported by a grant from the Department of Health, Taipei City Government, Taiwan.
Disclaimer The study sponsor was not involved in the study design, the collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data, the writing of this report, or the decision to submit it for publication.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Ethics approval This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of TCH (TCHIRB-10502121-E).
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement Data are available on reasonable request. This prospective cohort study analysed the palliative data at Taipei City Hospital. All information that allows a specific individual patient to be identified was encrypted. After encryption of the data, we collected patients’ demographics, comorbidities, place of death and life-sustaining treatments during EOL care.
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