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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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How great a burden does early discharge to hospital-at-home impose on carers?
— a randomized controlled trial | | Author(s) | David Gunnell, Joanna Coast, Suzanne H Richards |
| Journal title | Age and Ageing, vol 29, no 2, March 2000 |
| Pages | pp 137-142 |
| Keywords | Informal care ; Quality of life ; Stress ; Aftercare ; Discharge [hospitals] ; Early ; Social surveys ; Bristol. |
| Annotation | Hospital-at-home treatments are increasingly being considered and implemented, yet the effect of such schemes on carers has received little attention. 133 carers (mean age 65; 56% women) of a group of mainly older people in Bristol participated in a randomised trial comparing early hospital discharge with usual hospital care. Based on results of a modified 12-item Carer Strain Index, COOP-WONCA charts and Euro-Qol EQ-5D, there were no differences reported by either group in increased strain or reduction in their quality of life at 4-week or 3-month follow-up. Carers were generally satisfied with most aspects of both hospital-at-home and hospital treatment, any differences tending to favour hospital-at-home care. These results suggest that decisions in implementation of hospital-at-home schemes should be based more on cost and effectiveness than their potential effects on carers. The authors stress that their findings should not necessarily be extrapolated to hospital-at-home schemes for other patient groups. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-000717204 A |
| Classmark | P6: F:59: QNH: LN: LD:QKJ: 4J: 3F: 8AB |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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