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YSU’s look at hospice prompts national study
By Denise Dick
Youngstown
A Youngstown State University pilot study of perceptions about hospice prompted a national study.
Daniel Van Dussen, associate professor in the department of sociology, anthropology and gerontology, is the lead author of “Perceptions About Hospice From a Commmunity-Based Pilot Study: Lessons and Findings,” published last September in the American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Medicine.
It surveyed 148 adults age 43 and older to determine their perceptions and awareness of hospice, or end-of-life care.
After the study’s publication, the Hospice Foundation of America contacted Van Dussen about a national study to determine the perceptions of hospice on a wider scale.
“The average length of stay in hospice is 14 to 21 days,” Van Dussen said.
Those people don’t get the full advantage of hospice services, he said, because it takes at least 30 days to reach maximum benefit.
Some people may not be aware of all of the services offered by hospice, many of which offer help for family members.
“That’s almost as important as the patient,” Van Dussen said.
He sits on the board of Hospice of the Valley.
Mary Foster, executive director of Hospice of the Valley, said the agency wanted to look at the utilization of services, particularly in diverse communities. The agency had hired an outreach coordinator to work in the black community a few years ago.
Disproportionately lower numbers of qualifying blacks, Asians and Hispanics enroll in hospice, the study’s introduction says.
“I think what we have learned is that there are trust-building activities that we need to do in our community with all populations, but particularly with populations with significant barriers to health care, let alone hospice care,” Foster said. “There’s spillover. Our goal is to be available to individuals whatever they need so they have an understanding [that] bereavement services are available as a community service. You do not have to have had hospice in order to have access to them.”
Van Dussen said he and co-authors Krystal K. Culler, now a graduate student at the University of Akron, and John G. Cagle of the University of North Carolina Institute on Aging, approached churches to find older people from diverse populations.
In the black community, for example, there’s a general level of mistrust in the medical and research fields, the professor said.
Sixty-eight churches from Mahoning, Columbiana and Trumbull counties were selected randomly from 450 that had been identified. Research-team members contacted church leaders by telephone to explain the study and ask if they would refer those eligible or advertise the study to parishioners.
Three churches refused to participate, two didn’t meet eligibility criteria, two were wrong numbers and 51 didn’t respond. Eight agreed to help with the study.
Respondents were 44 percent men, 56 percent women, 81 percent white; and 51 percent between 50 and 69 years old.
The study found that attitudes toward hospice care were generally favorable. But it also found that those surveyed didn’t think hospice care was covered by Medicare.
Medicare does cover hospice, Foster said.
Van Dussen said that for an early part of the larger study, researchers will target Hispanic communities to gauge their attitudes toward and understanding of hospice.