Journal article
Palliative care during COVID-19: Data and visits from loved ones
- Abstract:
-
Objectives:
A vital component of the coronavirus response is care of the dying COVID-19 patient. We document the demographics, symptoms experienced, medications required, effectiveness observed, and challenges to high-quality holistic palliative care in 31 patients. This will aid colleagues in primary and secondary care settings anticipate common symptoms and formulate management plans.
Methods: A retrospective survey was conducted of patients referred to the hospital palliative care service in a tertiary hospital, south east of England between March 21 and April 26, 2020. Patients included had a confirmed laboratory diagnosis of COVID-19 via reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction nasopharyngeal swab for SARS-Cov-2 or radiological evidence of COVID-19.
Results: The thirty-one patients included were predominantly male (77%), elderly (median [interquartile range]: 84 [76-89]), and had multiple (4 [3-5]) comorbidities. Referral was made in the last 2 [1-3] days of life. Common symptoms were breathlessness (84%) and delirium (77%). Fifty-eight percent of patients received at least 1 “as required” dose of an opioid or midazolam in the 24 hours before death. Sixty percent of patients needed a continuous subcutaneous infusion and the median morphine dose was 10 mg S/C per 24 hours and midazolam 10 mg S/C per 24 hours. Nineteen percent of our cohort had a loved one or relative present when dying.
Conclusion: We provide additional data to the internationally reported pool examining death arising from infection with SARS-CoV-19. The majority of patients had symptoms controlled with low doses of morphine and midazolam, and death was rapid. The impact of low visitation during dying needs exploring.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Version of record, 156.0KB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.1177/1049909120943577
Authors
- Publisher:
- SAGE Publications
- Journal:
- American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine More from this journal
- Volume:
- 37
- Issue:
- 11
- Pages:
- 988-991
- Place of publication:
- United States
- Publication date:
- 2020-07-24
- Acceptance date:
- 2020-06-29
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1938-2715
- ISSN:
-
1049-9091
- Pmid:
-
32705889
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1135697
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1135697
- Deposit date:
-
2022-07-04
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Heath et al
- Copyright date:
- 2020
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record