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Use and impact of a novel nurse-led consultation model in a palliative care consultation service for terminally ill cancer patients in Taiwan: an 11-year observational study

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Abstract

Purpose

The early integration of palliative care for terminally ill cancer patients improves quality of life. We have developed a new nurse-led consultation model for use in a palliative care consultation service (PCCS) to initiate early palliative care for cancer patients.

Methods

In this 11-year observational study, data were collected from the Hospice-Palliative Clinical Database (HPCD) of Taichung Veterans General Hospital (TCVGH). Terminally ill cancer patients who had received PCCS during the years 2011 to 2021 were enrolled. Trend analysis was performed in order to evaluate differences in outcomes seen within the categories of either a nurse-led consultation model or ordinary consultation model throughout the study period. Analysis included studying the duration of PCCS and DNR declaration, as well as awareness of disease by both patients and families before and after PCCS.

Results

In total, 6923 cancer patients with an average age of 64.1 years received PCCS from 2011 to 2021, with the average duration of PCCS being 11.1 days. Three thousand four hundred twenty-one patients (49.4%) received both a nurse consultation and doctor consultation during PCCS. Being admitted to the Department of Hematology, a longer duration of hospitalization, a DNR declaration after PCCS, and having had a PCCS consultation by a nurse only or both with a nurse and a doctor were significant determinants of a PCCS duration of more than 7 days.

Conclusion

This 11-year observational study shows that the number of terminal cancer patients receiving a novel nurse-led consultation during PCCS has increased significantly during the past decade, while a nurse-led consultation model during PCCS was effective in improving the duration of PCCS among terminally ill cancer patients.

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Acknowledgements

We thank our colleagues from Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan for providing support in both statistical analysis and English editing.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available, but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request with the permission of Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nursing, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan

    Lian-Shin Lin & Ling-Hui Huang

  2. School of Public Health, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Szu-Pei Chien

  3. Department of Family Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan

    Chun-Li Wang, Lung-Chun Lee, Chung-Chieh Hu, Pi-Shan Hsu & Wei-Min Chu

  4. Institute of Medicine, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Chun-Li Wang

  5. Department of Industrial Engineering and Enterprise Information, Tunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Lung-Chun Lee

  6. Graduate Institute of Microbiology and Public Health, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Pi-Shan Hsu

  7. School of Medicine, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Wei-Min Chu

  8. Department of Post-Baccalaureate Medicine, College of Medicine, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Wei-Min Chu

  9. Research Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Wei-Min Chu

  10. Department of Epidemiology of Aging, National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Obu, Japan

    Wei-Min Chu

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  1. Lian-Shin Lin
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Contributions

Each author’s individual contributions: conceptualization, W.-M.C.; methodology, W.-M.C.; software, S.-P.C.; validation, L.-S.L. and L.-H.H.; formal analysis, S.-P.C. and L.-S.L.; investigation, L.-S.L. and L.-H.H.; resources, C.-L.W. and L.-C.L.; data curation, C.-C.H.; writing—original draft preparation, W.-M.C. and L.-S.L.; writing—review and editing, W.-M.C. and L.-S.L.; supervision, P.-S.H.; project administration, P.-S.H.; funding acquisition, W.-M.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wei-Min Chu.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of Taichung Veterans General Hospital (protocol code: TCVGH-IRB CE20362A and date of approval: December 2, 2020).

Consent to participate and publication

The Institutional Review Board of Taichung Veterans General Hospital approved this study and deemed that informed consent should be waived owing to the retrospective nature of the study.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Lin, LS., Huang, LH., Chien, SP. et al. Use and impact of a novel nurse-led consultation model in a palliative care consultation service for terminally ill cancer patients in Taiwan: an 11-year observational study. Support Care Cancer 31, 246 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-023-07697-4

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