To Örebro University

Background: Many patients who receive palliative home care wish to die at home, even when the symptom of the disease deteriorates. Despite this, large number of patients die in hospital. 

Aim: To map the occurrence of patients receiving specialized palliative home care being transported to hospital near death in Sweden. 

Methods: A national retrospective cross-sectional study based on data from the Swedish Register of Palliative Care. Patients ≥18 years of age enrolled in specialized palliative home care with dates of death 2015 11 01 – 2022-10-31 were included (n= 39,698). Descriptive statistics were used to compare patients who were transported to hospital and died there within seven days of arrival, and patients who were not transported or transported earlier than seven days before death.

Results: Of the total study population, 7,383 patients were identified as dying in hospital/other care unit within 7 days of transport from specialized palliative home care. The majority (74%) were admitted to a specialized palliative care unit, 23% to a non-specialized palliative care unit and 3% to additional care units. Most patients died 1-2 days after arriving at the hospital. No clinical relevance differences were noted regarding sex, age, or diagnosis when comparing transported patients with non-transported patients, whereas the transported patients had more frequent dyspnea (31% vs. 23%, p <0.001) and anxiety (60% vs. 57%, p<0.001). Presence of several simultaneous symptoms was significantly more common in the transported group (27% vs. 25%).

Conclusion: Many patients enrolled in specialized palliative home care were transported and died in hospital. Most died 1-2 days after arrival. They had complex symptoms and not all patients were admitted to a specialist palliative care unit. Some common denominators, such as symptoms and symptom burden, can be noted in the patients who are transported, but more studies are needed to identify the causal relationship of these transports.