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Comparing the quality of death for hospice and non-hospice cancer patients
K A Wallston1, C Burger, R A Smith
1Health Care Research Project, School of Nursing, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37240.
Medical Care
|February 1, 1988
Abstract:
In this secondary analysis of data from the National Hospice Study (NHS), a new measure, quality of death (QOD), was developed by weighting reports of cancer patients' last 3 days of life by what patients wanted their last 3 days to be like. Using analysis of covariance, the QOD scores were higher for terminally ill patients in hospices (either home-care [HC] or hospital-based [HB]) than similar patients who received conventional care (CC). The results are discussed in terms of verification of the hospice philosophy and other uses for a quality of death measure.