Analysis of the Complexity of Palliative Care for Cancer Patients

The Spanish National Health System has defined complexity as a set of factors of increased difficulty that require the intervention of a palliative care team. Palliative care aims to improve the quality of life of patients with chronic terminal illnesses. This study aims to describe the degree of complexity of cancer patients in palliative care, to determine which elements of complexity are most prevalent and to determine which other hospital clinical factors are associated with the level of complexity.

This study is a descriptive, observational, and cross-sectional analysis that included patients diagnosed with advanced oncological pathology undergoing palliative treatment who were admitted to the Medical Oncology ward of the Miguel Servet University Hospital between March and April 2023.

A total of 100 patients were selected for the study. According to the IDC-Pal, 68% of patients were classified as highly complex, 26% of patients were complex and only 6% of patients were classified as non-complex. The presence of pain (P < .001), nausea and vomiting (P = .027), depression (P = .033) and functional status (P = .011) were statistically independent predictors of high complexity.

This study has shown that a high proportion of hospitalized palliative care cancer patients have high complexity, suggesting a good matching of healthcare resources to patient complexity. Four factors related to complexity have been identified, namely pain, nausea and vomiting, depression and a bedridden functional state. The presence of any of the 4 factors could help healthcare professionals to identify patients for early specialized palliative care.