The impact of the duration of the palliative care period on cancer patients with regard to the use of hospital services and the place of death: a retrospective cohort study

Table 3 Results of the regression model expressed as the proportional change (%) in the patients’ services usage 14, 30 and 60 days prior to death resulting from an increase in the covariates by 1 %. In the case of binary variables, the coefficient depicts the proportional changed in the service in each diagnosis group compared to breast cancer patients

	Dependent variable
	Emergency department visits			Inpatient days
Number of days before death	14	30	60	14	30	60
Age	− 0.2^a	− 0.1	− 0.2^b	−0.3	− 0.1	−0.4^b
Days from diagnosis to death	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	−0.1	− 0.1
Binary variable: Diagnosis groups (reference category: Breast cancer)
Cancers of urinary tract	−0.4	1.0	20.2^b	9.2	25.8	42.7
Colorectal cancers	4.0	7.9	9.1	−5.1	16.9	10.4
Gynecological cancers	3.2	−1.6	−8.7	1.3	11.7	25.9
Head & Neck (H&N)	−10.2	− 16.7	− 18.5	−30.6	−29.8	− 8.1
Lung	8.7	10.8	7.9	9.0	12.8	13.2
Lymphomas	−1.9	2.0	5.7	50.8^b	60.3^b	64.2^b
Melanoma and other skin cancers	−0.6	−4.9	−7.9	−24.1	− 26.2	−23.8
Others	−0.6	5.8	5.3	33.4	81.9^a	89.6^a
Primary CNS malignancies	−11.7^b	−17.8^a	−22.1^a	−44.1^a	−38.1^a	−39.4^a
Prostate cancers	6.6	10.3	13.6	7.6	12.2	15.4
Sarcomas	−11.7	−19.2^b	−19.7	− 32.7	−24.7	−25.6
Upper gastrointestinal	6.8	8.7	12.2	5.1	22.1	20.6
Binary variable: PC categories (reference category: ‘no PC decision’)
PC-decision	−12^a	−18.6^a	−13.4^a	−47.1^a	−57.6^a	−51.1^a
PC-decision and admission to PC unit	−15.3^a	−21.9^a	−24.2^a	−56^a	−63.4^a	−64.4^a
Test statistics
Adjusted R²	0.06	0.08	0.06	0.13	0.18	0.16
F-stat	4.45	6.13	4.98	10.16	14.16	12.02
Residual standard error	0.35	0.44	0.53	1.10	1.08	1.14

ISSN: 1472-684X