Introduction: Palliative care is a multidisciplinary therapy formed by physical, social, psychological, cultural and spiritual support of patients and families. The aim of the present study is to compare the survival rates of the intensive care unit (ICU) and palliative care unit (PCU).
Materials and methods: A retrospective observational cohort study was performed using the database of an intensive care unit. Patients with terminal illness admitted to the intensive care unit or palliative care unit were included in the study. Demographic data, comorbidities, time of admission, discharge and death were recorded. The survival estimation was completed using Kaplan Meier survival analysis.
Result: A total of 112 patients were included in the study. Patients were divided into two groups where 60 patients (53.6%) were in Group ICU and 52 (46.4%) were in Group PCU. The Kaplan-Meier estimation of survival curves showed that the overall median time was 29 days. This result demonstrated that 50% of the patients was survived longer than 29 days, in which it was 12 days and 38 days for Group ICU and Group PCU, respectively (𝜒2= 3.475, p= 0.062). The cost of either intensive care unit or palliative care unit did not show any difference (p= 0.902).
Conclusions: The present study showed that long-term survival rates are similar in intensive care unit and palliative care unit.