Changes in Pain Medication Profile among Patients Admitted to Specialized Home Palliative Care in Relation to Referral Source: An Exploratory Study.

Changes in Pain Medication Profile among Patients Admitted to Specialized Home Palliative Care in Relation to Referral Source: An Exploratory Study. J Pain Palliat Care Pharmacother. 2020 Jun 10;:1-8 Authors: Berthold D, Carrasco AJP, Brachvogel S, Sibelius U, Eul B, Dumitrascu R, El-Awad U, Maeder LJ, Hauch H Abstract Pain is a common symptom leading to referrals to specialized home palliative care (SHPC) services and is known to affect patients' quality of life. To date, little is known about the impact of referral source on its management. To assess changes to pain medication profile in the course of SHPC and to identify potential differences in relation to referral source. This exploratory study is a retrospective analysis of 501 electronic medical records of a SHPC team in Germany. This included the assessment of baseline pain medication profiles according to the WHO analgesic ladder and changes to analgesic treatment in the course of SHPC with respect to referral source. At the time of admission, 77.4% of patients referred by a hospital and 78.8% of patients referred by the outpatient sector received a fixed analgesic regimen. In all, 61.9% of the inpatient group versus 62.9% of the outpatient group were treated with opioids, and 79.0% received modifications to pain medication at one point in time following admission. Thereby, patients referred by the outpatient sector received significantly earlier modifications and more suppl...
Source: Journal of Pain and Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy - Category: Palliative Care Tags: J Pain Palliat Care Pharmacother Source Type: research