Place of death and phenomenon of going home to die in Chinese adults: A prospective cohort study
Li Weng, Yizhen Hu, Zhijia Sun, Canqing Yu, Yu Guo, Pei Pei, Ling Yang, Yiping Chen, Huaidong Du, Yuanjie Pang, Yan Lu, Junshi Chen, Zhengming Chen, Jun Lv, Bin Du, Liming Li
Abstract
BACKGROUND: China is embracing an ageing population without sustainable end-of-life care services. However, changes in place of death and trends of going home to die (GHTD) from the hospital remains unknown. METHODS: A total of 42,956 participants from the China Kadoorie Biobank, a large Chinese cohort, who died between 2009 and 2017 was included into analysis. GHTD was defined as death at home within 7 days after discharge from the hospital. A modified Poisson regression was used to investigate temporal trends of the place of death and GHTD, and estimate prevalence ratios (PRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the association of GHTD with health insurance (HI) schemes. FINDINGS: <0·001). INTERPRETATION: In China, most of deaths occurred at home, with a large proportion of decedents GHTD from the hospital, especially for URRBMI beneficiaries. Substantial variation in the phenomenon of GHTD across HI schemes indicates inequalities in end-of-life care utilization. FUNDING: The National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Kadoorie Charitable Foundation, the National Key R&D Program of China, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology.