palliative-care-2018-scientifictracks

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Journal of Palliative Care & Medicine | ISSN: 2165-7386 | Volume 8

August 27-28, 2018 | Boston, USA

International Conference on

Palliative Care, Medicine and Hospice Nursing

Does the number of co-morbidities influence the length of terminal stay in the palliative care unit?

Johan Menten, Coppens G, Lembrechts M, Brackenier C, Vandyck Hendrik, Haemels Veerle, Peeters Elise

and

Bollen Heleen

Catholic University Leuven, Belgium

Introduction:

Many terminal patients in a palliative care unit have different co-morbidities along the main diagnosis. It is

generally assumed that patients with more co-morbidities are frailer and will die sooner compared to patients that have none

or one co-morbidity. We didn’t find any support in the scientific literature to support this assumption.

Material and Methods:

In a database of 3010 patients that passed away in the palliative care unit of the University Hospital of

Leuven (1999-2016) we searched for the effect of the number of co-morbidities on the length of stay of these patients until the

date of dying

Results:

Patients with 0-2 co-morbidities were a median time of 9 days until death in the palliative care unit while patients with

3 or 4 co-morbidities died after 7 days. After statistical ANOVA analysis is it shown that the number of co-morbidities does

not influence the length of stay of terminal patients in the palliative care unit (p = 0.6381). The curves of survival probability

of patients with 1 to 4 co-morbidities superimpose on each other.

Conclusion:

There is no correlation between the number of co-morbidities and the length of stay until death in the palliative

care unit for terminal patients. Patients with 1 to 4 co-morbidities die after equally lengths of stay.

Biography

Johan Menten completed his Graduation in Medicine from Limburgs University Center and Catholic University Leuven. He is also a Member of the board of Belgian

society of palliative Care till 2000. Now, he is President of the research task group in the Flemish Federation of Palliative Care.

johan.menten@uzleuven.be

Johan Menten et al., J Palliat Care Med 2018, Volume 8

DOI: 10.4172/2165-7386-C3-020