This episode features Ellis Slotman (Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organisation (IKNL), Utrecht, the Netherlands)
What is already known about the topic?
- Potentially inappropriate end-of-life care in patients with cancer is still common.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has been shown to affect cancer diagnosis and treatment, but evidence on how the pandemic has affected end-of-life care is limited.
What this paper adds?
- The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with less potentially inappropriate care at the end of life in patients with cancer.
- The decline in potentially inappropriate end-of-life care was driven by fewer hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions in the last month of life and fewer hospital deaths.
Implications for practice, theory, or policy
- The findings of this study raise important questions as to which pandemic related changes in end-of-life care delivery and decision making might be able to contribute to appropriate end-of-life care for future patients.
- Ensuring that awareness for triaging and advance care planning is maintained after the pandemic may be of great importance in this regard.
Full paper available from:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02692163231217373
If you would like to record a podcast about your published (or accepted) Palliative Medicine paper, please contact Dr Amara Nwosu:
a.nwosu@lancaster.ac.uk