Table 3

Distribution of health-related variables for persons who used a professional home care service (n = 355) and the whole sample of answered questionnaires (n = 1378) of the EPACS study

Used professional home care

Answered questionnaires

n

%

n

%

Proceeding, incurable, lethal disease

Yes

319

89.9

998

72.4

No

30

8.5

351

25.5

Missing

6

1.7

29

2.1

Type of diseasea

Cancer

112 (175)

31.6 (49.3)

334 (537)

24.2 (39.0)

Dementia

35 (99)

9.9 (27.9)

122 (310)

8.9 (22.5)

Cardiovascular diseases

18 (114)

5.1 (32.1)

115 (424)

8.4 (30.8)

Other

32 (146)

8.9 (41.1)

166 (554)

12.0 (40.2)

Multimorbidity (e.g. Cancer + Dementia + CVD)

151

42.5

504

36.6

Missing/I don't know

7

2.0

137

9.9

Place of death

At home

229

64.5

526

38.2

In a hospital

92

25.9

541

39.3

In a palliative care facility

23

6.5

103

7.5

In a nursing home

11

3.1

185

13.4

Elsewhere

0

0.0

22

1.6

Missing

0

0.0

1

0.1

Duration of home care

No home care

0

0.0

574

41.7

< 1 week

59

16.6

59

4.3

1 - < 2 weeks

42

11.8

42

3.1

2 - < 3 weeks

30

8.5

30

2.2

3 - 4 weeks

224

63.1

224

16.3

Missing/I don't know

0

0.0

449

32.6

^aMultiple answers were permitted regarding the underlying disease. The figures outside the brackets show the number/percentage of people having suffered only from the aforementioned particular disease. Persons having suffered from more than one disease prior to death were assigned to the category "multimorbidity". In contrast, the figures in brackets show the number/percentage of people having suffered from the aforementioned disease and potentially from one or more additional diseases. In this regard, the percentage values in brackets always refer to the total number of people (i.e. 355 or 1378 respectively) and are not to be interpreted as column percentages.

Escobar Pinzón et al. BMC Palliative Care 2010 9:16   doi:10.1186/1472-684X-9-16