The National Hospice and Palliative Care registry in Korea

The National Hospice and Palliative Care (NHPC) registry is a nationwide database in Korea that systematically collects infor-mation on terminally ill cancer patients receiving inpatient hospice care. From 2018 to 2020, a total of 47,911 patients were en-rolled in the NHPC registry from hospitals providing inpatient hospice care. The NHPC database mainly contains the socio-de-mographic and clinical information of the registered patients. Among these patients, approximately 75% were 60 years or older, and the ratio of males to females was 1:1.41. Lung, liver, colorectal, pancreatic, and gastric cancer made up nearly 90% of the cancer sites among the registered patients. Upon their initial admission to the hospice ward, around 80% of the patients were aware of their terminal illness. About half of the patients had mild pain at the time of the initial admission to the hospice ward, and the duration of hospice care was 14 days (interquartile range, 6-30) in 2019 and 2020. The NHPC registry aims to provide national statistics on inpatient hospice care to assist health policy-making.

Automated summary

The National Hospice and Palliative Care (NHPC) registry is a nationwide database in Korea that collects information on terminally ill cancer patients receiving inpatient hospice care. The database contains socio-demographic and clinical information of the registered patients. The majority of the patients were 60 years or older, with a male-to-female ratio of 1:1.41. The most common cancer sites among the registered patients were lung, liver, colorectal, pancreatic, and gastric cancer. Around 80% of the patients were aware of their terminal illness upon admission to the hospice ward. The duration of hospice care was 14 days in 2019 and 2020.