IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v58y2004i12p2431-2444.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Place of death: preferences among cancer patients and their carers

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas, C
  • Morris, S.M
  • Clark, D

Abstract

The place of death of cancer patients has become an important theme in UK cancer and palliative care policy. This paper examines the place of death preferences of 41 terminally ill cancer patients and 18 of their informal carers, living in the Morecambe Bay area of north-west England. We interviewed cancer patients referred to the research team by 13 specialist palliative care professionals; patients had an estimated 3 months of life remaining. The study design involved an in-depth qualitative interview with each patient soon after referral to the study, followed by an interview some 4 weeks later and subsequent tracking interviews by telephone at 2-4 week intervals until death occurred. Interviews were also conducted with main coresident carers soon after patient referral to the study and again in the post-bereavement period. Thirteen factors were identified as shaping the place of death preference of patients and carers. These are organised into four thematic domains: the informal care resource, management of the body, experience of services, and existential perspectives. In documenting these factors, this paper adds significantly to current knowledge on the factors that shape place of death preference, a field of enquiry acknowledged to be underdeveloped (J. Palliative Med. 3 (2000) 287). More importantly, it uncovers some of the reasons that underpin these preferences. Our research revealed a much stronger preference for deaths in a hospice than had been anticipated, leading us to take a qualified stance on the current policy drive in favour of home deaths by those charged with delivering UK cancer and palliative care services.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas, C & Morris, S.M & Clark, D, 2004. "Place of death: preferences among cancer patients and their carers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(12), pages 2431-2444, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:58:y:2004:i:12:p:2431-2444
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(03)00468-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Leeson, George W., 2019. "The ageing and de-institutionalisation of death—Evidence from England and Wales," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(4), pages 435-439.
    2. Lowton, Karen, 2009. "'A bed in the middle of nowhere': Parents' meanings of place of death for adults with cystic fibrosis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(7), pages 1056-1062, October.
    3. Jakobsson, Eva & Bergh, Ingrid & Ohlen, Joakim & Oden, Anders & Gaston-Johansson, Fannie, 2007. "Utilization of health-care services at the end-of-life," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 276-287, August.
    4. Cohen, Joachim & Bilsen, Johan & Hooft, Peter & Deboosere, Patrick & Wal, Gerrit van der & Deliens, Luc, 2006. "Dying at home or in an institution: Using death certificates to explore the factors associated with place of death," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(2-3), pages 319-329, October.
    5. Tang, Siew Tzuh & Liu, Tsang-Wu & Lai, Mei-Shu & McCorkle, Ruth, 2005. "Discrepancy in the preferences of place of death between terminally ill cancer patients and their primary family caregivers in Taiwan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(7), pages 1560-1566, October.
    6. Kissane, Lee Andrew & Ikeda, Baku & Akizuki, Reiko & Nozaki, Shoko & Yoshimura, Kimio & Ikegami, Naoki, 2015. "End-of-life preferences of the general public: Results from a Japanese national survey," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(11), pages 1472-1481.
    7. Gielen, Birgit & Remacle, Anne & Mertens, Raf, 2010. "Patterns of health care use and expenditure during the last 6 months of life in Belgium: Differences between age categories in cancer and non-cancer patients," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 53-61, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:58:y:2004:i:12:p:2431-2444. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.