Do Caregivers Have an Effect on Extended Hospitalization in Patient-Followed Palliative Care Center? A Study from Türkiye

INTRODUCTION: Since palliative care clinics are clinics that strive to solve the pain caused by the disease as well as other physical and psychological symptoms and social problems as a caregiver burden, the length of stay becomes important in our clinics with high demand from patients.
One of the purposes of palliative care centers is to evaluate the patient for discharge. We aimed to investigate whether the length of stay is caused by the caregivers as well as clinical conditions.
METHODS: In this study, we retrospectively investigated the days of hospitalization of 915 patients followed in a palliative care center and the factors that prolong hospitalization in patients with extended hospitalization.
RESULTS: The average length of stay of the patients was found to be 15.65±11.43 days. Hospitalization longer than 28 days was found in 97(10.60%) patients. The most common reason for extended hospitalization was the reluctance of caregivers to discuss discharge in 47 (48.45%) patients. The second most frequent discharge was delayed in 25 (25.8%) patients due to clinical instability. 23(23.71%). A significant relationship was detected between length of stay and TPN nutrition. A significant relationship was detected between patients with cancer (P: 0.042) and coronary artery disease (P<0.01) on extended stay.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: With the aging of the world population and the improvement of health care services, the need for palliative care is increasing daily. To use resources efficiently, there is a need to optimize the length of stay in palliative care with a multidisciplinary approach.