Does comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) in an outpatient care setting affect the causes of death and the quality of palliative care? A subanalysis of the age-FIT study

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to retrospectively study whether comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) given to community-dwelling old patients with high health care usage has effects regarding: (1) the cause of death and (2) the quality of the provided palliative care when compared to patients without CGA-based care. Method: This study includes secondary data from a randomised controlled trial (RCT) with 382 participants that took place in the periods 2011–2013. The present study examines all electronical medical records (EMR) from the deceased patients in the original study regarding cause of death [intervention group (IG) N = 51/control group (CG) N = 66] and quality of palliative care (IG N = 33/CG N = 41). Descriptive and comparative statistics were produced and the significance level was set at p < 0.05. Results: The causes of death in both groups were dominated by cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases with no statistical difference between the groups. Patients in the intervention group had a higher degree of support from specialised palliative care teams than had the control group (p = 0.01). Conclusion: The present study in an outpatient context cannot prove any effects of CGA on causes of death. The study shows that CGA in outpatient care means a higher rate of specialised palliative care, but the study cannot show any effects on the palliative quality parameters measured. Further studies with statistical power are needed.