Barriers of Transfer to Palliative Care Units in Core Cancer Hospitals from the Viewpoint of Medical Social Workers and Discharge Support and Coordination Nurses

Identifying barriers regarding cancer patients’ transfer to palliative care units (PCUs) should help improve their quality of life and enable them to choose where to recuperate. The present study sought to define these barriers using a self-completed questionnaire survey of medical social workers and nurses at the discharge support and coordination departments of 424 cancer care hospitals nationwide. By exploratory factor analysis, Identified barriers to PCUs transfer included 11 domains. Our study suggested that the barriers experienced by medical social workers and nurses at the discharge support and coordination departments regarding transfer to PCUs can be reduced by sufficient explanation by physicians to patients, timely PCUs referral with psychosocial consideration, improvement of collaborative system in between cancer care hospitals nationwide, general hospital, PCUs and home medical care, clarifying adequate structure to identify the patient who needs admission to PCUs.