Retrospective Analysis of the Integration of Palliative Care Into the Care of Stroke Patients Admitted to a Regional Stroke Center.
Houman Khosravani, Meera Mahendiran, Brindan Sivanandan and 5 others
PMID 38725344WHAT IT FOUND
Only 28.8% of stroke patients who died received a palliative care consult, and the median time to consult was 6 days.
RNs may see this as a signal to check consult status in coma-range or transferred stroke patients.
Key findings
01Among 320 stroke patients who died, 28.8% received a palliative medicine consult.
02The median time to death was 6 days, and the median time to palliative medicine consult was 6 days.
03After adjusting for several factors, none were significantly linked to whether a patient received a palliative care consult.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study looked only at patients who died, so it says nothing about palliative care use in stroke survivors. It was a retrospective chart review at one academic stroke centre with established palliative care services, so the results may not apply to other hospitals. Missing data reduced the adjusted model from 320 patients to 231, which weakens confidence in the associations. The study did not examine family, clinician, or service factors that may explain why a consult was or was not started. Because it only observed who received a consult, it cannot show that palliative care consultation changes patient or family outcomes.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest and received no financial support for the research, authorship, or publication.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the univariate associations as confirmed risk factors for missing palliative care. The adjusted model found no significant factors linked to consult, and the study did not test whether palliative care consultation changes outcomes.