Enhanced home palliative care could reduce emergency department visits due to non-organic dyspnea among cancer patients: a retrospective cohort study

Table 3 Characteristics of ED patients with dyspnea attributed to the home palliative care patients with cancer

Characteristic	All sample	Group A	Group B	P-value^*
Patients, No.	89	57	32
ED visits	106	69	37
Man, No (%)	44 (49.4)	27 (47.4)	17 (53.1)	0.60
Age, mean ± SD, yr	70.4 ± 13.0	69.3 ± 13.1	72.6 ± 12.7	0.31
Grade of school completed, yr	8 ± 4.8	8.4 ± 4.4	7.3 ± 5.5	0.32
Home care services
Telephone nurse per weeks	1.3 ± 1.2	1.4 ± 0.8	1.4 ± 2.0	0.95
Visiting nurse per weeks	0.77 ± 0.89	0.75 ± 0.4	0.98 ± 1.8	0.32
Types of Caregivers
Family	57 (65.5)	32 (57.1)	25 (80.6)	0.027
Nonfamily	30 (34.5)	24 (42.9)	6 (19.4)
Site of death
Home	23 (27.7)	13 (24.5)	10 (33.3)	0.39
Hospital	60 (72.3)	40 (75.5)	20 (66.7)

* General linear model for continuous variables, Chi-square test for categorical variables for the different palliative home care methods

ISSN: 1472-684X