Home is The Best Place To Die - Essay Example

Familiarity with a hospice inpatient setting is known to influence preferences in patients with advanced illness. The unique components of home hospice, inpatient hospice, and transitions between these settings may have a fundamental role in the future of quality end-of-life care (Lysaght & Ersek, 2013, p. 171). In a recent study, patients receiving specialist palliative care who had experienced an inpatient hospice stay were more likely to choose to die at the hospice, whereas a majority of those who had never been an inpatient at the hospice chose home (Arnold et al, 2013).

Evidence also suggests that people with first-hand knowledge of hospices reported a preference to be cared for at home in the last months of life but shifted towards a preference for the hospice when asked where they would like to be cared for in their last days. Place of death should be regarded as an essential goal in end-of-life (Kinoshita et al., 2015). A study conducted by Barclay, Kuchibhatla, Tulsky, & Johnson, (2013) established that most Americans would prefer to die at home. Similarly, there are barriers to dying at home for most patients with limited resources.

It is necessary to provide health care professionals and caregivers to terminal ill patients. Also, psychological and emotional support from family members and relatives is useful in improving their conditions. Lastly, to reduce these barriers, there is a need for provision of equipment and medications to the patients. Statistical surveys by Neergaard, Jensen, Sondergaard, Sokolowski, Olesen, & Vedsted, (2011) reported that majority (80.7%) of terminally ill cancer patients preferred their homes as place for end of life.

A further research revealed that 70.8% of the public indicated that they would prefer their homes as the place to spend the last days of their lives (Wilson, Cohen, Deliens, Hewitt, & Houttekier, 2013). Similarly, Higginson & Sen-Gupta’s (2000) reported on 18 studies on