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“Hello. May I speak with someone, please? It's not about my physical pain.”: A retrospective study about the factors associated with phone calls to a Portuguese home-based palliative care team

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2021

Miguel Julião Open the ORCID record for Miguel Julião [Opens in a new window] ,
Bárbara Antunes Open the ORCID record for Bárbara Antunes [Opens in a new window] ,
Catarina Samorinha  and
Harvey Max Chochinov
Miguel Julião*
Affiliation:
Equipa Comunitária de Suporte em Cuidados Paliativos de Sintra, Sintra, Portugal
Bárbara Antunes
Affiliation:
Primary Care Unit, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Centro de Estudos e Investigação em Saúde da Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal Department of Midwifery and Palliative Care, Florence Nightingale School of Nursing, King's College London, London, UK
Catarina Samorinha
Affiliation:
Sharjah Institute for Medical Research, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
Harvey Max Chochinov
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Research Institute of Oncology and Hematology, Cancer Care Manitoba, University of Manitoba, Manitoba, Canada
*
Author for correspondence: Miguel Julião, Equipa Comunitária de Suporte em Cuidados Paliativos de Sintra, Portugal. E-mail: migueljuliao@gmail.com
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Abstract

Objective

Telephone availability is integrated into our home-based palliative care team (HPCT) with the aim of helping terminally ill patients and their caregivers alleviate their physical and psychosocial suffering, in addition to the team's home visits. We aimed to compare the differences between non-callers (patients with no phone calls during the team's follow-up period) vs. callers (≥1 phone call during the team's follow-up period) across sociodemographic, clinical, physical, and psychosocial variables.

Method

Retrospective analysis of all patients with and without phone call entries registered in our anonymized database, from October 2018 to September 2020.

Results

We analyzed 389 patients: 58% were male, and the average age was 71 years old; 84% had malignancies, with a mean palliative performance status of 45%. The majority of patients (n = 281, 72%) made at least one phone call to HPCT. On average, a mean of 2.5 calls (SD = 3.61; range: 0–26) per patient was registered. Callers compared with non-callers more frequently lived with someone (p = 0.030), preferred home as a place to die (p = 0.039), had more doctor (p = 0.010) and nurse home visits (p = 0.006), a prolonged HPCT follow-up time (p = 0.053), along with more frequent emergency room visits (p < 0.001) and hospitalizations (p = 0.043). Moreover, those who made at least one phone call to the HPCT had a higher frequency of conspiracy of silence (p = 0.046), anxiety (p = 0.044), and lower palliative performance status (p = 0.001). No statistically significant associations or differences were found for the other variables.

Significance of results

Several factors seem to correlate with an increased number of phone calls, and physical suffering does not play a relevant role in triggering contacts, in contrast with psychosocial and other clinical factors.

Keywords

Home-based palliative carePhone callsRetrospective studyTerminally ill
Type
Original Article
Information
Palliative & Supportive Care , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , February 2022 , pp. 107 - 112
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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