Impact of Home Care on Place of Death, Access to Emergency Departments and Opioid Therapy in 350 Terminal Cancer Patients

Abstract

. General practitioners (GPs) and nursesworking in home care are important actors in this respect; primary care is closest tofamilies and to social ser vices and therefore, at least in theory, it is the sector most in-tegrated both with families and the community network of services, presenting thelowest threshold for access. However, the factors influencing place of death have notbeen studied in depth within primary care, while the main experiences described inthe literature concern cancer patients assisted by hospital nurses and palliative carephysicians or, less frequently, by primary home care services