Patients’ experiences of transfers between care settings in palliative care: an interview study
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Palliative patients often suffer from serious illness and commonly move between care settings. As such, transfers of patients can take place between acute hospital based care and community based care in both directions. The involvement of multiple caregivers providing care across settings causes fragmentation of care. To address this challenge and to optimize coordination and continuity of care, we explored experiences of palliative patients regarding their transfers between care settings and the perceived role of the treating family physician. METHODS: Qualitative interview study of 20 palliative patients. Participating settings were the hospital and hospitals' palliative care unit, the nursing home, the home care setting and the palliative day care centre. A constant comparative method was used to analyze data. RESULTS: Although the home was considered the preferred residence, perceptions of unsafety arose in cases of increased symptom burden and when the organization of home care was insufficiently geared to the patients' needs. Both the nursing home and the palliative care unit offered safety and good care when home residence became unfeasible. Upon hospital admission, experiences did not always meet expectations, varying significantly depending on the hospital, type of ward and reason for hospitalization. Perceived issues regarding hospital discharge were premature release, lack of seamless care and home care insufficiently tailored to the patients' needs. The family physician's role assignment ranged from pivotal to minimal. Patients especially expected their family physician to guarantee continuity of care. CONCLUSIONS: Home is considered the preferred place of long-term care, as long as it is perceived a safe environment. A person-centered approach, focusing on the patient's complex needs, is not consistently implemented in palliative care settings. Barriers in inter-professional collaboration need to be tackled to provide high quality care across settings.
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Ensuring smooth transitions between care environments is crucial to reducing the physiological and psychological stress caused by environmental changes and providing continuous, consistent, and high-quality palliative care.
“In this context, ensuring smooth transitions between care environments is crucial to reducing the physiological and psychological stress caused by environmental changes, and providing continuous, consistent, and high-quality palliative care [21].”
From Experiences of family caregivers of patients with end-of-life cancer during the transition from hospital to home palliative care: a qualitative study (2024) · cites this paper as [21]
The Introduction and Comparison with existing literature sections link transfers to fragmented care, disrupted continuity, poor care quality, and patients feeling unsafe. The Implications for practice and policy section calls for coordinated, high-quality care across settings. The paper does not establish that environmental changes cause physiological and psychological stress or that smoother transitions reduce that stress. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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- Authors
- Mertens, F., Sercu, M., Derycke, A., Naert, L., Deliens, L., Deveugele, M., & Pype, P.
- Affiliations
- Vrije Universiteit Brussel (BE)
- Ghent University (BE)
- Corresponding author
- Mertens, Fien
- Venue
- Annals of Palliative Medicine
- Publisher
- AME Publishing Company
- Published
- 2022-09
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 2830-2843
- ISSN
- 2224-5820 (ISSN-L)
- 2224-5839
- OpenAlex
- W4292683303
- Cited by
- 18
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3
- FWCI
- 3.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-nd
- Locations
- Annals of Palliative Medicine (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- VUBIR (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Palliative Care and End-of-Life Issues
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Palliative and Oncologic Care
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Geriatric Care and Nursing Homes
- Keywords
- palliative care, continuity of care, care fragmentation, family physician role, home care, nursing homes, palliative care units, hospital discharge, premature discharge, interprofessional collaboration, patient safety, person-centred care, patient experience
- MeSH terms
- Home Care Services, Humans, Palliative Care, Caregivers, Qualitative Research, Hospice and Palliative Care Nursing
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