Benefits of home care for incurable cancer are unclear

Benefits of home care for incurable cancer are unclear

Comprehensive home care programmes for incurable cancer are generally believed to be beneficial to patients' quality of lifeand reduce the time they have to spend in hospital. Smeenk etal (p 1939) conducted a systematic review to investigate whetherthis belief could be confirmed scientifically. They found 9 prospectivecontrolled studies; methodological quality was moderate. The variousstudies showed no consistent results. The possibility of teammembers visiting patients at home and regular multidisciplinaryteam meetings seemed to be important elements in achieving favourableresults. Owing to the lack of decisive studies and the medical,social, and economic problems associated with terminal cancercare, further properly designed studies are urgently needed.

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Effectiveness of home care programmes for patients with incurable cancer on their quality of life and time spent in hospital: systematic review: Frank W J M Smeenk, Jolanda C M van Haastregt, Luc P de Witte, and Harry F J M Crebolder
BMJ 1998 316: 1939-1944. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]