Differences in service utilization between pediatric and adult palliative care services in a single center.
Palliat Support Care
; : 1-4, 2024 Oct 03.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-39360444
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES:
Current recommendations do not separate adult and pediatric palliative care (PC) in terms of the personnel needed, or the distribution of care between community and hospital-based services. We evaluated the differences in the utilization of pediatric and adult hospital PC services for non-oncological patients.METHODS:
Retrospective study. Parameters included demographics, underlying diagnoses, number of consultations per patient, duration of PC involvement, and follow-up. All non-oncology patients seen by the adult or pediatric PC teams between June 2021 and July 2023 at a single tertiary hospital.RESULTS:
A total of 445 adults and 48 children were seen by the adult and pediatric palliative teams, respectively. Adults were primarily seen in the terminal stages of common chronic diseases, with a high mortality rate. Children were mainly seen at a very young age with rare and complicated diseases. Children needed longer duration of follow-up (114 vs. 5 days, p < 0.001), more consultations (8.5 vs. 4, p < 0.001), and died less while hospitalized (25% of patients vs. 61.6%, p < 0.001). SIGNIFICANCE OFRESULTS:
Adult patients had relatively common diseases, seen and treated often by primary care practitioners, whereas children had rare life-limiting diseases, which primary care pediatricians may have limited experience with, and which require involvement of multiple specialized hospital-based services. Future healthcare PC planning should consider these factors in planning the primary setting for PC teams, specifically more training of adult general practitioners in PC skills, and earlier referral of pediatric patients to hospital-based PC.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Language:
En
Journal:
Palliat Support Care
Journal subject:
TERAPEUTICA
Year:
2024
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Israel
Country of publication:
United kingdom