Is palliative care equal?
A register study of differences in care between Swedish-born and foreign-born dying patients
Description
International research has shown that, in many countries, there are differences regarding both usage and quality of the palliative care provided to patients categorized as ethno-cultural minorities and patients categorized as the majority population. Such research has not yet been conducted in the Swedish context. Scholars have, however, observed differences in the quality of care that Swedish-born and foreign-born patients receive in other areas of healthcare, for example, in maternity care. Within Swedish palliative care, studies have shown that professional care providers tend to take for granted that caring for patients with migrant backgrounds is challenging. In addition, research has established that the quality of palliative care in Sweden differs depending on the patient's age, diagnosis and place of residence.
This project aims to examine whether the documented quality of palliative care and end-of-life care differs between foreign-born and Swedish-born patients. The study is an exploratory registry study. Data from the Swedish palliative care register is used to examine the documented care during the dying patients' last week of life. The variables gender, age and country of birth are taken from Statistics Sweden's register of the total population (RTB).