Psychosocial wellbeing: Measure 1.2
Measure 1.2
Proportion of palliative care phases for people with life-limiting illnesses for which psychological or spiritual problems improved or remained at a low level after intervention.
This measure is about ensuring that people with life-limiting illnesses receive effective care that minimises psychological and spiritual distress. People with life-limiting illnesses are likely to experience changing feelings as their illness progresses, so this measure looks at changes across palliative care phases. A palliative care phase is a clinically meaningful period in a patient's condition (stable, unstable, deteriorating, terminal). This measure uses clinician-reported data to assess the severity of problems related to patient psychological or spiritual wellbeing.
The desired outcome is that fewer people with life-limiting illnesses experience psychological or spiritual distress, meaning the measure will increase.
Objective area: Effective Outcome area: Psychosocial wellbeing
Baseline value
80.2% in 2018
Latest value
79.2% in 2022
Status
Regress
Definition | Data source | |
---|---|---|
Numerator | Number of palliative care phases ending within the reference period with a valid Palliative Care Problem Severity Score (PCPSS) for ‘Psychological/Spiritual’ problems at phase start and end and for which the PCPSS improved or remained absent/mild. | PCOC data |
Denominator | Number of palliative care phases ending within the reference year with a valid PCPSS for ‘Psychological/Spiritual’ problems at start and end of phase. | PCOC data |
Note, data for this measure only includes a subset of all palliative care delivered in Australia, as there is currently no complete national data on patient outcomes for people with life-limiting illnesses.
See Data dictionary and Data sources for more information.
Trends
In 2018, people with life-limiting illnesses experienced improved or maintained low levels of psychological or spiritual problems in 80.2% of palliative care phases (recorded in the PCOC data collection). This decreased slightly to 79.2% in 2022. This decrease occurred over the COVID-19 pandemic which may have impacted on how people were accessing and receiving palliative care services, and their outcomes during this period. Note, these findings should be interpreted with caution as the number of services participating in PCOC increased between 2018 and 2022 (see Data sources for more information).
Figure 1.2.1: Proportion of palliative care phases for people with life-limiting illnesses for which psychological or spiritual problems improved or remained at a low level after intervention, 2018–2022
This interactive line graph shows the phases for which psychological wellbeing improved or remained at a low level after intervention from 2018–2022.
Characteristics
In 2022, the proportion of palliative care phases for which psychological or spiritual problems improved or remained at a low level after intervention, varied by some characteristics and not others. Note, these findings should be interpreted with caution as the representativeness of the PCOC data collection by different demographic characteristics is unknown (see Data sources for more information).
Figure 1.2.2 highlights that the proportion of palliative care phases for which psychological or spiritual problems improved or remained at a low level over the phase was:
- similar for males (79.3%) and females (79.2%)
- steadily increasing with age from age group 25–34 (74.0%) to 85 and over (84.2%)
- higher among people with non-malignant diagnoses (82.7%) than malignant diagnoses (77.9%)
- similar for people from varying socioeconomic areas (ranging from 78.4% to 79.9%), and people from varying remoteness areas (ranging from 77.0% to 80.6%)
- higher among people in inpatient settings (83.2%) than community settings (75.7%)
- highest when only looking at terminal phases (83.7%) and lowest when only looking at stable phases (73.2%)
- highest for phases where psychological or spiritual problems were mild at phase start (88.4%) and lowest where psychological or spiritual problems were moderate at phase start (63.3%).
Figure 1.2.2: Proportion of palliative care phases for people with life-limiting illnesses for which psychological or spiritual problems improved or remained at a low level after intervention, by selected characteristics, 2022
This interactive bar graph shows the phases for which psychological wellbeing improved or remained at a low level after intervention, by selected characteristics in 2022.