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Transitions in health and social service system at the end of life

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Abstract

This study focuses on the amount and types of transitions in health and social service system during the last 2 years of life and the places of death and among Finnish people aged 70–79, 80–89 and 90 or older. The data set, derived from multiple national registers, consists of 75,578 people who died between 1998 and 2001. The services included university hospitals, general hospitals, health centres and residential care facilities. The most common place of death was the municipal health centre: half of the whole research population died in a health centre. The place of death varied by age and gender: men and people in younger age groups died more often in general or in university hospital or at home, while dying in health centres or in residential care homes was more common among women or the very old. Number of transitions varied from zero to over a hundred transitions during the last 2 years. Number of transitions increased as death approached. Men and younger age groups had more transitions than women and older age groups. Among men and younger age groups transitions between home and general or university hospital were common while transitions between home and health centre or residential care were more common to women and older people. The results indicate that municipal health centres have a major role as care providers as death approaches. Differences between gender and age in numbers and types of transitions were clear. Future research is needed to clarify the causes to these differences.

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Acknowledgements

This project was supported by a grant to Professor Marja Jylhä from the Research Programme on Health Service Research (Academy of Finland). Also, we thank the research group of Pekka Martikainen (University of Helsinki) for graciously sharing their data with us.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tampere School of Public Health, University of Tampere, FI-33014, Tampere, Finland

    Mari Aaltonen, Leena Forma, Pekka Rissanen, Jani Raitanen & Marja Jylhä

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  1. Mari Aaltonen
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  2. Leena Forma
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  4. Jani Raitanen
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  5. Marja Jylhä
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Correspondence to Mari Aaltonen.

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Handling editor: Dr. Dorly J. H. Deeg.

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Aaltonen, M., Forma, L., Rissanen, P. et al. Transitions in health and social service system at the end of life. Eur J Ageing 7, 91–100 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-010-0155-3

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