Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of home palliative care services for adults with advanced illness and their caregivers

Barbara Gomes, et al. Cochrane Pain, Palliative and Supportive Care Group

The results provide clear and reliable evidence that home palliative care increases the chance of dying at home and reduces symptom burden in particular for patients with cancer, without impacting on caregiver grief. This justifies providing home palliative care for patients who wish to die at home. More work is needed to study cost-effectiveness especially for people with non-malignant conditions, assessing place of death and appropriate outcomes that are sensitive to change and valid in these populations, and to compare different models of home palliative care, in powered studies.