Practice Analysis of Care, Paraclinical Exams and Treatments Received by Geriatric Patients Both During the Last Week and the Last 24 Hours of Their Lives.

Recruiting

• Conditions: End-of-life Care
• Interventions: Other: Collecting data from the medical record

• Registration Number: NCT06026241
• Lead Sponsor: Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Saint Etienne

Brief Summary

End-of-life care is a core topic for geriatricians. One of the key aspects of end-of-life management is deciding when to discontinue active care measures (for example blood pressure monitoring, blood tests and X-rays) in favor of exclusive comfort care. In this retrospective observational study, the investigators looked at the care measures, treatments and paraclinical exams received by geriatric patients both one week and 24 hours before their death.

Detailed Description

This analysis provides information on the differences in geriatric physicians' practices regarding the anticipation of the end of life, by showing on average when active care measures were stopped before death. Secondly, the investigators looked at patient criteria that could explain a prolongation of active care and a delay in the implementation of exclusive comfort care.

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2023-08-30
• Study First Submitted QC: 2023-08-30
• Study First Posted: 2023-09-07
• Study Start: 2024-03-01
• Status Verified: 2025-03
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-03-17
• Last Update Posted: 2025-03-18
• Primary Completion: 2025-12-31
• Study Completion: 2025-12-31

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 100

Inclusion Criteria

• All patients over 75 years old who died in a geriatric short-stay department at Saint-Etienne University Hospital.

Exclusion Criteria

• Patients under 75 years old

Study & Design

• Study Type: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Design: Not specified

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Patients over 75 who died in geriatrics	Collecting data from the medical record	Patients over 75 years old who died in the geriatric short-stay departments of Saint-Etienne University Hospital

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Prevalence of care and treatments received during the last week of life, and during the last 24 hours of life	In the last week of life and 24 hours before death	To measure the prevalence of care (hemodynamic, biological and radiological monitoring), and to evaluate the treatments received during the last week of life, and during the last 24 hours of life of patients hospitalized and who died in a geriatric short-stay ward.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Patient criteria that may have explained the pursuit of care	In the last week of life and 24 hours before death	Analysis of patient criteria (age, comorbidities, etc.) that may have explained the continuation of care, treatments and paraclinical exams up to the last 24 hours before death.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

CHU Saint-Etienne; 🇫🇷 Saint-Étienne, France