Challenges in assessing the need for beds in palliative care-The example of inpatient hospice care for children, adolescents and young adults

Title

Challenges in assessing the need for beds in palliative care-The example of inpatient hospice care for children, adolescents and young adults

Creator

Jaspers B; Jansky M; Nauck F

Publisher

Palliative Medicine

Date

2018

Subject

human; child; female; male; palliative therapy; diagnosis; death; Likert scale; psychosocial care; adult; home care; major clinical study; conference abstract; young adult; artificial ventilation; Germany; occupation; semi structured interview; long term care; resident; quantitative analysis; disabled person; funding; hospital patient; mortality; statistics; prevalence; hospice care; calculation; length of stay; politics

Description

Background: Inpatient hospice care (IHC) for adults in Germany is used in the last weeks of life. Children, adolescents and young adults (ACA) with life-limiting diseases are entitled to 28 days/year of IHC during their lifetime. We explored various data to assess the need for IHC for ACA in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW; 17.6 million inhabitants). Methods: Quantitative: All local hospices (n=5; 52 beds) and the single palliative care unit (PCU) for ACA were asked to contribute data on service provision, e.g. patient numbers and characteristics, occupation rate (OcR), length of stay. All local specialist palliative home care teams (n=6) (SAPV) for ACA were asked to estimate the percentage of ACA for whom they arranged IHC and in which timely manner (6-point Likert scale). Qualitative semi-structured interviews (hospices; SAPV; PCU) covering aspects such as access, barriers to access, needs coverage, impact of newly implemented SAPV on need, unmet demand for other services, funding politics and networking. Further data (reference year 2015): a) mortality statistics-% of all ACA in NRW dying from cancer (< 20 years)/non-cancer diseases according to the 4 ACT disease groups (< 25 years); b) prevalence estimates. Results: The 4 responding hospices had cared for 81-127 patients; average stay: 8-10 days, OcR: 60-90%. Cancer accounted for 1-20% of admissions, severe multi-handicapped ACA were 29-80%, 0-15% had no clear diagnosis. Hospices, SAPV and PCU teams saw no need for further hospice beds for ACA in NRW. They reported a lack of short and long-term care facilities for ACA in need of intensive medical care (and/or invasive ventilation) as well as of ambulatory psychosocial care and care management. Of the 1383 deaths (0-24 years) 47.1% were >1 year old, 62.3% of those < 20 years and 33.4% of those from 20-24 years had diseases according to the ACT groups and were probably in need of IHC. Different calculation models for prevalence will be discussed. Conclusion: Estimating the need for hospice beds for ACA remains difficult for various reasons: a) lack of valid prevalence statistics of relevant diseases, b) mortality statistics underestimate palliative care need, c) data protection regulations prohibit data exchange between hospices, d) local data do not capture the fact that residents from all German States are entitled to use IHC in NRW, and e) therefore an estimation would have to triangulate data from all relevant services for ACA across Germany.

Rights

Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).

Citation List Month

August 2018 List

Collection

Citation

Jaspers B; Jansky M; Nauck F, “Challenges in assessing the need for beds in palliative care-The example of inpatient hospice care for children, adolescents and young adults,” Pediatric Palliative Care Library, accessed March 28, 2024, https://pedpalascnetlibrary.omeka.net/items/show/15544.