Object of the Study: In The Netherlands, professional caregivers of all disciplines can consult Palliative Care Consultation teams (PCC teams) about their patients in palliative care. A nationwide study is conducted to evaluate consultation requests.
Method: In the period of March 2001 to March 2003 consultations of 21 PCC teams were registered by the consultants and entered into national database. The effect of consultation was evaluated by the requesting caregivers. The registration and evaluation forms were developed by a multidisciplinary group of researchers, based on previous pilot studies involving different PCC teams.
Results: In the study period, 4740 consultation requests were registered. Mainly general practitioners (52%) and to a fewer extent district nurses (8%) requested for consultation, 28% of the consultations were requested by caregivers in hospitals and nursing homes. Consultations concerned patients mainly diagnosed with cancer (91%), with a bad prognoses and low functional status. Physical problems (68%), organisation of care (32%), pharmacological (30%) and psychological problems (27%) were most frequently addressed in these consultations. To a lesser extent social and spiritual problems were discussed (in 14% and 7% of the consultations respectively). In 15% of the consultations also problems of the requesting professional were discussed.
Discussion: The complexity of a nationwide study has several pitfalls. For one, nearly 100 consultants registered their consultations and 5 researchers were responsible for the collection of the data. In this presentation it will be discussed what could be done to control the quality of the data as well as what consequences these pitfalls had and how misinterpretation was prevented.