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Preferred place of care and place of death of the general public and cancer patients in Japan

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Abstract

Dying at a favorite place is one of the important determinants for terminally ill cancer patients. The primary aim was to clarify (1) differences in preferred place of care and place of death among the general public across four areas across Japan and (2) preferred place of care and place of death among community-representative cancer patients. A cross-sectional mail survey was conducted on 8,000 randomly selected general population. We examined preferred place of care and place of death using two vignettes and obtained a total of 3,984 (50%) responses. For the pain scenario, approximately 50% of the general public throughout four areas chose home as their preferred place of care; and for the dependent-without-pain scenario, about 40% chose home as preferred place of care. In cancer patients, for both scenarios, approximately 40% chose home as the preferred place of care, and they were significantly less likely to choose home. The most preferred combination of place of care and place of death was home hospice for both groups. Although there were statistically significant differences in preferred place of care and place of death among the four regions, the absolute difference was less than 8%. Independent determinants of choosing home as place of care included concern about family burden and being unable to adequately respond to sudden changes out of working hours. In conclusion, establishing more accessible home and hospice service is strongly required through arranging regional resources to reduce family burden, alleviating patient-perceived burdens, and improving 24-h support at home.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nursing, Seirei Christopher University, 3453 Mikatahara, Kita-ku, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, 433-8558, Japan

    Akemi Yamagishi

  2. Department of Palliative and Supportive Care, Palliative Care Team, and Seirei Hospice, Seirei Mikatahara General Hospital, Hamamatsu, Japan

    Tatsuya Morita

  3. Department of Palliative Nursing, Health Sciences, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan

    Mitsunori Miyashita

  4. Department of Clinical Psychology, Graduate School of Education, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Saran Yoshida

  5. Psycho-Oncology Division, Chiba Cancer Center, Chiba, Japan

    Nobuya Akizuki

  6. Shirahige Clinic, Nagasaki, Japan

    Yutaka Shirahige

  7. Faculty of Policy Management, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan

    Miki Akiyama

  8. Department of Internal Medicine, Teikyo University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

    Kenji Eguchi

Authors
  1. Akemi Yamagishi
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  2. Tatsuya Morita
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  3. Mitsunori Miyashita
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  4. Saran Yoshida
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  5. Nobuya Akizuki
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  6. Yutaka Shirahige
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  7. Miki Akiyama
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  8. Kenji Eguchi
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Correspondence to Akemi Yamagishi.

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Yamagishi, A., Morita, T., Miyashita, M. et al. Preferred place of care and place of death of the general public and cancer patients in Japan. Support Care Cancer 20, 2575–2582 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-011-1373-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-011-1373-8

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