Place of death for patients treated at a tertiary cancer center in Jordan

Home death is considered to be a marker of good death. Little is known about the place of death and its determinants in patients with cancer in Jordan.

A retrospective analysis of regularly collected data of cancer patients who had a palliative care consultation at King Hussein Cancer Center and died between 2011 and 2012. Variables analyzed were related to the patient, disease, and palliative care services. Patient-related factors included age at death, gender, place of residence, and code status; disease-related variables were cancer type (solid vs hematological), major primary site, and time from cancer diagnosis to death; palliative care service-related variables included time of consultation for palliative care services to death, location of first palliative encounter (outpatient clinic vs hospital floor), multidisciplinary palliative home care teams involvement, and the number of home care visits before death. We examined the association between each variable and place of death using Pearson's chi-square and the Mann-Whitney tests. Factors with statistical significance of P value < 0.1 were entered into multivariate logistic regression model.

Among 630 patients, 80 (12.7%) died at home. Univariate analysis showed the following to be significantly associated with dying at home: male gender, age more than 65 years old, earlier palliative care involvement, and involvement of home care services (P value < 0.05). Independent predictors for dying at home were male gender, age more than 65 years old, and involvement of home care services.

Hospital death is more prevalent than home death in cancer patients in Jordan. Involvement of home care services can help achieve the goal of dying at home.