Objective: This study aimed to describe a 4-year practice of continuous palliative sedation (CPS) in a palliative medicine ward of an academic hospital in China. To compare the survival time of patients with cancer with and without CPS during end-of-life care, we used the propensity score matching method and explored potential patient-related factors.
Design: A retrospective observational cohort study.
Setting: The palliative ward at a tertiary teaching hospital between January 2018 and 10 May 2022, in Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
Participants: The palliative care unit had 1445 deaths. We excluded 283 patients who were sedated on admission due to mechanical ventilation or non-invasive ventilators, 122 patients who were sedated due to epilepsy and sleep disorders, 69 patients without cancer, 26 patients who were younger than 18 years, 435 patients with end-of-life intervention when the patients' vital signs were unstable and 5 patients with unavailable medical records. Finally, we included 505 patients with cancer who met our requirements.
Main outcome measures: The survival time and analysis of sedation potential factors between the two groups were compared.
Results: The total prevalence of CPS was 39.7%. Patients who were sedated more commonly experienced delirium, dyspnoea, refractory existential or psychological distress, and pain. After propensity score matching, the median survival was 10 (IQR: 5-17.75) and 9 days (IQR: 4-16) with and without CPS, respectively. After matching, the two survival curves of the sedated and non-sedated groups were no different (HR 0.82; 95% CI 0.64 to 0.84; log-rank p=0.10).
Conclusions: Developing countries also practise palliative sedation. Median survival was not different between patients who were and were not sedated.
Keywords: adult oncology; adult palliative care; cancer pain; palliative care; public health; quality in health care.
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