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Review
. 2016 Oct 25:8:637-643.
doi: 10.2147/CLEP.S99468. eCollection 2016.

Danish Palliative Care Database

Mogens Groenvold  1 , Mathilde Adsersen  2 , Maiken Bang Hansen  2
Affiliations
Review

Danish Palliative Care Database

Mogens Groenvold et al. Clin Epidemiol. .

Abstract

Aims: The aim of the Danish Palliative Care Database (DPD) is to monitor, evaluate, and improve the clinical quality of specialized palliative care (SPC) (ie, the activity of hospital-based palliative care teams/departments and hospices) in Denmark.

Study population: The study population is all patients in Denmark referred to and/or in contact with SPC after January 1, 2010.

Main variables: The main variables in DPD are data about referral for patients admitted and not admitted to SPC, type of the first SPC contact, clinical and sociodemographic factors, multidisciplinary conference, and the patient-reported European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionaire-Core-15-Palliative Care questionnaire, assessing health-related quality of life. The data support the estimation of currently five quality of care indicators, ie, the proportions of 1) referred and eligible patients who were actually admitted to SPC, 2) patients who waited <10 days before admission to SPC, 3) patients who died from cancer and who obtained contact with SPC, 4) patients who were screened with European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionaire-Core-15-Palliative Care at admission to SPC, and 5) patients who were discussed at a multidisciplinary conference.

Descriptive data: In 2014, all 43 SPC units in Denmark reported their data to DPD, and all 9,434 cancer patients (100%) referred to SPC were registered in DPD. In total, 41,104 unique cancer patients were registered in DPD during the 5 years 2010-2014. Of those registered, 96% had cancer.

Conclusion: DPD is a national clinical quality database for SPC having clinically relevant variables and high data and patient completeness.

Keywords: EORTC QLQ-C15-PAL; cancer; multidisciplinary conference; patient-reported outcomes; quality indicator; specialized palliative care.

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Conflict of interest statement

Mogens Groenvold is chairman of the DPD Board and Mathilde Adsersen and Maiken Bang Hansen, PhD students, work part time in the DPD Secretariat. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.

References

    1. National Board of Health (Sundhedsstyrelsen) Clinical Quality Databases. Copenhagen: National Board of Health (Sundhedsstyrelsen); 2001. pp. 1–40. In Danish.
    1. Hansen MB, Adsersen M, Groenvold M. Danish Palliative Care Database. Annual Report 2014. Copenhagen: DMCG-PAL; 2015. In Danish. - PubMed
    1. Groenvold M, Petersen MA, Aaronson NK, et al. The development of the EORTC QLQ-C15-PAL: a shortened questionnaire for cancer patients in palliative care. Eur J Cancer. 2006;42:55–64. - PubMed
    1. Stromgren AS, Groenvold M, Pedersen L, Olsen AK, Spile M, Sjogren P. Does the medical record cover the symptoms experienced by cancer patients receiving palliative care? A comparison of the record and patient self-rating. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2001;21:189–196. - PubMed
    1. Stromgren AS, Groenvold M, Sorensen A, Andersen L. Symptom recognition in advanced cancer. A comparison of nursing records against patient self-rating. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand. 2001;54:1080–1085. - PubMed

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