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End-of-life care for veterans with schizophrenia and cancer.

Ganzini L, Socherman R, Duckart J, Shores M. End-of-life care for veterans with schizophrenia and cancer. Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.). 2010 Jul 1; 61(7):725-8.

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Abstract:

OBJECTIVE: This study compared the quality of end-of-life care between veterans with and without schizophrenia who died of cancer in the northwestern United States. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, medical records of 60 veterans with schizophrenia and 196 with no major mental illness who died of cancer were compared on hospice enrollment, palliative and life-sustaining interventions, advance directives, and site of death. RESULTS: Among veterans with schizophrenia, 58% had an advance directive, 73% received an opiate before hospice enrollment, 63% had a physician order to forgo cardiopulmonary resuscitation, 55% were hospice enrolled, and 27% died in the hospital. Schizophrenia patients had longer hospice stays (107+/-144 versus 63+/-96 days, p = .05) and more physician orders for life-sustaining treatment (15% versus 5%, p = .006) compared with veterans without mental illness. CONCLUSIONS: On most measures, veterans with schizophrenia who died of cancer received comparable or better end-of-life care than veterans without mental illness.




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