Patients’ perceptions of hospice day care: a phenomenological study

Systematic review of specialist palliative day-care for adults with cancer

“…However, 15 papers report data from 12 observational studies of day-care [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28], 11 from the UK and 1 from the US [18], and provide some information on the structure, process and outcomes of day-care. All are grade IIIC studies except one prospective study (grade IIIA) comparing 120 patients receiving day-care with a matched group of 53 receiving usual palliative care.…”

“…However, because of illness and death, only 49% could be seen for follow-up visits [27,28]. Otherwise there are six reports of practice from practitioners within single units ( Table 2) [14][15][16][17][18][19], two surveys of practice across units around the UK (Table 3) [20,21], five observational or qualitative studies of practice in between 1 and 12 different units (Table 4) [22][23][24][25][26] and one prospective study (Table 5) [27,28]. These studies give some data on the funding, management and policies of the services provided, some needs and outcomes and patients' views about different aspects of care they receive.…”

“…In only one study were ethnicity and employment investigated, and most of one sample of 120 patients were white and retired [27]. Assessed by practitioners, patients' most common needs were social and emotional including social support and the "need to get out", nursing needs, carer respite and the control and monitoring of specific symptoms [12,13,15,25]. The most common medical problem reported was pain [14,16,17,27].…”

“…In units with medical staff, doctors carried out assessments, liaised with the patients' general practitioner, prescribed drugs and investigations and give advice on a regular or as-required basis [20]. Physiotherapy was offered in some but not all units [17,22,25]. In one it was used by 58% and declined by 10% of 263 patients [14].…”

‘God's waiting room’: how do older people with affective disorder view day hospital care?

“…'Meeting people' became more important over time whether the unit worked to a 'social' or a more 'medical' model of care. Another small qualitative study of 12 patients suggested they felt accepted and understood, less isolated and motivated to take part in valued activities (Hopkinson and Hallet, 2001). …”