Factors associated with location of death (home or hospital) of patients referred to a palliative care team

OBJECTIVE: To identify factors associated with the location of death (home or hospital) of patients referred to a palliative care home support team. DESIGN: Retrospective case-control chart review. SETTING: Palliative care inpatient unit with a home support team in a large chronic care hospital. SUBJECTS: All 75 patients receiving services from the home support team who died at home between June 1988 and January 1990 and 75 randomly selected patients receiving the same services who died in hospital. OUTCOME MEASURES: Place of death (home or hospital). RESULTS: Of the 267 patients referred to the palliative care home support team during the study period 75 (28.1%) died at home. Factors significantly associated with dying at home were the patient9s preference for dying at home recorded at the time of the initial assessment (p