Medication use during end-of-life care in a palliative care centre.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In end-of-life care, symptoms of discomfort are mainly managed by drug therapy, the guidelines for which are mainly based on expert opinions. A few papers have inventoried drug prescriptions in palliative care settings, but none has reported the frequency of use in combination with doses and route of administration.

Objective

To describe doses and routes of administration of the most frequently used drugs at admission and at day of death. Setting Palliative care centre in the Netherlands.

Method

In this retrospective cohort study, prescription data of deceased patients were extracted from the electronic medical records.

Main outcome measure

Doses, frequency and route of administration of prescribed drugs

Results

All regular medication prescrip

SUBMITTER: Masman AD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4594093 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature