Need for additional professional psychosocial and spiritual support in patients with advanced diseases in the course of specialist palliative care – a longitudinal observational study

Table 5 Summary of hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting the extent of need for additional professional psychosocial and spiritual support when first entering SPC (T0) and during SPC (T1)

Predictor variables^a	Model 1 ß	Model 2 ß	Model 3 ß	Model 4 ß	Model 5 ß
*Score “Need for additional professional support at initiation of SPC” (T0, N = 314*^b)
Age	−.01	−.03	−.05	−.02	−.02
Gender (0, female; 1, male)	.01	.15	.01	.02	−.03
Primary disease (0, non-cancer; 1, cancer)		−.12	−.11	−.10	−.04
SPC setting (0, inpatient; 1, outpatient)		.17**	.17**	.21***	.17***
Care site prior SPC (0, at home 1; nursing home/hospital)		−.04	−.04	−.04	−.03
Having children (0, no; 1, yes)			−.03	−.01	−.01
Living situation (0, living alone; 1, with relatives or relatives nearby)			−.08	−.12*	−.09
Physical symptom count (0–21)				.51***	.33***
Distress (DT; 0–10)					.10*
Anxiety/depressive symptoms (PHQ-4; 0–12)					.33***
R²	.00	.04	.05	.30	.40
Adjusted R²	−.01	.03	.03	.28	.38
F for change in R²	.04	4.4	1.4	109.73	26.02
*Score “Need for additional professional support during SPC (T1, N = 129*^b)
Age	−.11	−.13	−.12	−.14	−.10
Gender (0, female; 1, male)	.08	.09	.08	.08	.02
Primary disease (0, non-cancer; 1, cancer)		−.18*	−.19*	−.19*	−.14
SPC setting (0, inpatient; 1, outpatient)		−.16	−.15	−.12	−.10
Care site prior SPC (0, at home 1; nursing home/hospital)		−.08	−.08	−.07	−.04
Having children (0, no; 1, yes)			−.03	−.01	.03
Living situation (0, living alone; 1, with relatives or relatives nearby)			−.03	−.07	−.08
Physical symptom count (0–21)				.21*	1.0
Distress (DT; 0–10)					2.0*
Anxiety/depressive symptoms (PHQ-4; 0–12)					.19
R²	.02	.08	.08	.12	.19
Adjusted R²	.00	.04	.03	.06	.13
F for change in R²	1.04	2.7	.18	5.67	5.30

Hierarchical linear regression analysis (enter method). Step 1: demographic variables (age, sex), step 2: care-related variables (primary disease, SPC setting, care site prior SPC); step 3: proxy-variables for social support (children, living situation), step 4: Physical burden (physical symptom count), step 5: variables reflecting psychological burden (distress, anxiety/depressive symptoms)
Abbreviations: ß Standardized regression coefficients, SPC specialist palliative care, DT Distress Thermometer, PHQ-4 Patient Health Questionnaire 4-item version
^a All potential predictor variables were measured at onset of specialist palliative care (T0), ^b Reduced sample size due to missing values (analyzed by listwise deletion)
* p <. 05
** p < .01
*** p < .001

ISSN: 1472-684X