Process Evaluation of the Regional Referral Clinical Pathway for Home-Based Palliative Care and Outreach Program: A Questionnaire Survey of the Medical Staff and Bereaved Families

Background: The purpose of this study was to clarify how the Regional Referral Clinical Pathway for Home-based Palliative Care (RRCP-HPC) and an outreach program by a palliative care team (PCT) lead to an improvement in the outcome. Design and Methods: We conducted questionnaire surveys using the mailing method involving the regional medical staff involved in cancer patients introduced to the PCT of a single hospital, as well as bereaved families. The questionnaire was prepared through interviews with the medical staff and bereaved families. Subsequently, factor analysis was performed to identify factor structures and calculate the correlation coefficient with each outcome. Results: For the questionnaire survey involving the medical staff, responses were collected from 119 regional medical institutions and 84 regional medical staff. The response rate per institution was 51.3%. Similarly, for the questionnaire survey involving bereaved families, the response rate was 42.4%. For the survey involving the medical staff, 6 factors, such as “improved awareness of an interdisciplinary team,” were extracted. For the survey involving the bereaved families, 4 factors, such as “improvement of communications between patients and healthcare professionals,” were extracted. There were significant (≥moderate) correlations between these factors and all outcomes. Conclusion: In this study, we clarified the process of achieving palliative care until death at home without difficulties using the outreach program and RRCP-HPC. The results suggest the importance of improving communications. The outreach program and RRCP-HPC may have contributed to palliative care at home without difficulties through an improvement in communications.