5519 - Is there a difference of Palliative care problems and needs between cancer and non-cancer hospitalized elderly patients?

Background

The elderly (above 65 years) have become the leading population of our society. Their multitude of healthcare chronic problems demands palliative care and therefore Palliative Care problems and needs (PCPN) assessment.

Methods

A quantitative study using structured questionnaires [PNPC, Mini – Mental State Examination (MMSE), demographic and clinical characteristics] was conducted through December 2018 – February 2019, at internal medicine wards of a public general hospital. Patients with MMSE<24, at the end of life and with recent surgery were excluded. A translated in Hellenic language short-form version of PCPN used assessing Palliative Care Problems and Need for Professional Care. The PCPN is a 33 items 3-point Likert type scale that covers 8 domains: Activities of daily living (ADL/IADL), Physical symptoms (PS), Autonomy (A), Social (SI), Psychological (PI), Spiritual issues (Sp), Financial problems (FP) and Need for information (NI). The level of statistical significance was set at 0.05.

Results

Sample consisted of 150 patients (51% men) with mean age 75.6 years old (SD = 10.1). The cancer diagnosis was 40% mostly colon cancer (38%) and for non-cancer patients hypertension (62.2%). No statistical differences were found between cancer and non cancer patients for the demographic and clinical characteristics (p > 0.05). The mean MMSE scare was 27.2 (SD = 2) in patients with cancer and 27.6 (SD = 1.9) in patients with no cancer (p = 0.313). Significantly greater scores were found on the ADL/IADL (p=.012 - p=.001), A (p=.050 - p=.002), SI (p=.007 - p=.004) and Sp (p=.014 - p=.001) in the cancer group for both problems and needs for care. Additionally, the cancer patients reported statistically significant higher need for professional care for FP (p=.022). No statistically significant differences were found for PS, PI and NI (p>.050).

Conclusions

Elderly hospitalized cancer patients have more palliative care problems and needs for care at daily living, social, spiritual and financial issues than those with no cancer. Hence, nurses should focus on meeting these needs, based on the principles of PC.

Clinical trial identification

Editorial acknowledgement

Legal entity responsible for the study

The authors.

Funding

Has not received any funding.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.