Deaths of children occurring at home in six European countries

Abstract

Although home deaths comprise a substantial proportion of all deaths of children with CCCs, variation among disease categories and across countries suggest that considerable potential still exists for further improvements in facilitating end-of-life care in the home for those children and families who desire to be in this location.

Determinants of Hospital Death for Taiwanese Pediatric Cancer Decedents, 2001–2010

“…13 In our study, pediatric cancer patients' place of death was more sensitive to resources at the primary hospital level than at the regional level, echoing a report that place of death for pediatric cancer patients in six European countries was not significantly predicted by regional number of hospital beds. 7 A novel result of our study is that receiving care in a nonprofit proprietary hospital increased the likelihood of hospital death. This result may be explained by nonprofit and public hospitals being more likely to care for critically ill patients with higher care needs 39 and treat them more intensively than forprofit hospitals.…”

“…2,8,9,14,16,29 However, Taiwanese pediatric cancer patients were more likely to die in an acute care hospital if they resided in the most urbanized area, in contrast to home death being associated with more affluent socioeconomic status in the U.S. 29 and England, 8,14 but not in New Zealand 5 and European countries. 7 In the most urbanized area of Taiwan, the population density is high, with most families living in small apartments in three-to five-floor buildings without elevators, making EOL care or death at home more difficult than in Taiwan's rural areas. Furthermore, in the most urbanized area, medical information and technology are highly disseminated, which may predispose parents with greater financial resources to try to save their child's life by seeking intensive treatments until the child's last moments of life in the hospital and subsequently death there.…”

Living Life to the Fullest: Early Integration of Palliative Care into the Lives of Children with Chronic Complex Conditions

“…The proportion of children with CCC dying at home varies between 15% [22] and 50% [109]. In the US, there appears to be an increasing trend toward death in the home in this population [22,110].…”

“…International guidelines suggest that home is the preferred location of death for children with CCC, and it is believed that most children and parents would concur [109,112]. However, home may not be the ideal setting for all children and families at the end of life [113].…”

Paediatric end‐of‐life care in the home care setting (PELICAN HOME) – a mixed methods study protocol

“…, Pousset et al . ). Nevertheless, the number receiving end‐of‐life (EOL) care in the home care setting is growing (Feudtner et al .…”