Hospice use and one-year survivorship of residents in long-term care facilities in Canada: a cohort study

BACKGROUND: Hospice care is designed for persons in the final phase of a terminal illness. However, hospice care is not used appropriately. Some persons who do not meet the hospice eligibility receive hospice care, while many persons who may have benefitted from hospice care do not receive it. This study aimed to examine the characteristics of, and one-year survivorship among, residents who received hospice care versus those who did not in long-term care facilities (LTCFs) in Canada. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study used linked health administrative data from the Canadian Continuing Reporting System (CCRS) and the Discharge Abstract Database (DAD). All persons who resided in a LTCF and who had a Resident Assessment Instrument Minimum Data Set Version 2.0 (RAI-MDS 2.0) assessment in the CCRS database between Jan. 1st, 2015 and Dec 31st, 2015 were included in this study (N = 185,715). Death records were linked up to Dec 31th, 2016. Univariate, bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed. RESULTS: The reported hospice care rate in LTCFs is critically low (less than 3%), despite one in five residents dying within 3 months of the assessment. Residents who received hospice care and died within 1 year were found to have more severe and complex health conditions than other residents. Compared to those who did not receive hospice care but died within 1 year, residents who received hospice care and were alive 1 year following the assessment were younger (a mean age of 79.4 [+ 13.5] years vs. 86.5 [+ 9.2] years), more likely to live in an urban LTCF (93.2% vs. 82.6%), had a higher percentage of having a diagnosis of cancer (50.7% vs. 12.9%), had a lower percentage of having a diagnosis of dementia (30.2% vs. 54.5%), and exhibited more severe acute clinical conditions. CONCLUSIONS: The actual use of hospice care among LTCF residents is very poor in Canada. Several factors emerged as potential barriers to hospice use in the LTCF population including ageism, rurality, and a diagnosis of dementia. Improved understanding of hospice use and one-year survivorship may help LTCFs administrators, hospice care providers, and policy makers to improve hospice accessibility in this target group.