Quality of palliative care through the relatives' eyes: findings of the CQ-index palliative care.

Aim: To measure the quality of palliative care, a CQ-index (Consumer Quality-index) was used. A CQ-index is a questionnaire assessing actual care experiences, rather than satisfaction. The questionnaire combines items on actual care experiences and items on how important certain quality aspects are for respondents. The CQ-index Palliative Care has a version for patients and a version for relatives. This presentation will be based on data collected by the relatives’ version. Methods: Thirty-five Dutch care organizations (e.g. hospices, hospitals, home care, residential elderly care) participated. All relatives of persons who died between 6 weeks and 6 months ago were eligible for inclusion. Relatives of patients who died unexpectedly were excluded. 395 relatives met the inclusion criteria and were send the CQ-index Palliative Care (response 52 %, n=204). Descriptive statistics were used for analysing the data. Results: In general, relatives were positive about the quality of palliative care received. A large majority (72%) would definitively recommend the care providers involved to other persons in a comparable situation. Another 22% would probably give this positive recommendation, while only 6% would not recommend the care provides involved. Relatives consider the following quality aspects very important: dying peacefully, getting help rapidly in acute situations, expertise of care providers, personal attention, respect for one’s life stance, autonomy, privacy, clear information, and continuity of care. Conclusion: Relatives of deceased Dutch patients give high quality scores to the palliative care received. Dying peacefully, getting help rapidly in acute situations, and expertise of care providers concern the ‘‘top 3’’ of quality aspects which are considered very important by relatives