Medical Care Analysis of Oncological and Non-Oncological Palliative Care Patients in Specialized Palliative Home Care

摘要

Background Besides the treatment of oncological patients the one of non-oncological becomes more important in specialized palliative home care. Facing this growing demand an analysis of characteristics and current logistic structures of oncological and non-oncological palliative care patients is necessary. Methods A retrospective epidemiological study using descriptive statistics was carried out to analyse diagnoses, symptoms, age, general state of health, duration and reason for termination of treatment of all patients who were treated by a specialized palliative care team from January 2015 to December 2016. Statistical differences were verified by using the unpaired t-test. Results Altogether 315 patients were examined. 9% of these had a non-oncological disease. Fatigue was the com-monest symptom in both groups. A considerable amount more oncological than non-oncological patients (47.6% vs. 17.2%) suffered from pain. Non-oncological patients were 5 years older, presented themselves with a 8.9% lower first noticed Karnofsky performance scale index and had a 16.5 days shorter period of treatment. Most of the patients of both groups died during the ongoing care service. Conclusion Although an extraordinary high amount of patients suffering from a tumour disease were treated by the reported team needs of non-oncological outpatient palliative care patients should be intensely focused. These patients can be different regarding their symptom-related therapy. Patients with no tumour disease get later access to palliative care compared to oncological ones.