Table 2.
Patient characteristics between Belgium, Italy and Spain (n = 874)
| Mild dementia (n = 385) | Severe dementia (n = 489) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belgium (n = 219) | Italy (n = 114) | Spain (n = 52) | P-valueb | Belgium (n = 312) | Italy (n = 128) | Spain (n = 49) | P- valueb | |
| n (%) | n (%) | n (%) | n (%) | n (%) | n (%) | |||
| Mean age at death [SD] | 86.4 [7.3] | 87.6 [5.7] | 88.9 [6.2] | 0.026a | 85.8 [6.7] | 87.9 [6.7] | 88.5 [4.7] | 0.001a |
| Gender, female | 137 (63.1) | 66 (59.5) | 36 (69.2) | 0.502 | 216 (69.7) | 94 (74.6) | 26 (53.1) | 0.031a |
| Longest place of residence in the last year of lifec | <0.001a | <0.001a | ||||||
| At home | 95 (43.4) | 97 (85.1) | 41 (78.8) | 87 (28.0) | 104 (81.3) | 32 (66.7) | ||
| Care homed | 122 (55.7) | 16 (14.0) | 11 (21.2) | 223 (71.7) | 24 (18.8) | 16 (33.3) | ||
| Main cause of death | 0.009a | 0.080 | ||||||
| Malignancy | 51 (23.3) | 9 (8.1) | 9 (17.3) | 32 (10.3) | 5 (4.0) | 8 (16.3) | ||
| Cardiovascular disease | 53 (24.2) | 44 (39.6) | 13 (25.0) | 59 (19.0) | 34 (27.0) | 6 (12.2) | ||
| Disease of nervous system | 25 (11.4) | 8 (7.2) | 5 (9.6) | 100 (32.2) | 39 (31.0) | 19 (38.8) | ||
| Respiratory disease | 32 (14.6) | 18 (16.2) | 3 (5.8) | 19 (6.1) | 15 (11.9) | 4 (8.2) | ||
| Stroke (CVA) | 23 (16.0) | 17 (13.5) | 6 (30.8) | 43 (13.8) | 11 (8.7) | 3 (6.1) | ||
| Other | 35 (16.0) | 15 (13.5) | 16 (30.8) | 58 (18.6) | 22 (17.5) | 9 (18.4) | ||
Missing cases for mild dementia, gender, n = 5 (BE = 2 | IT = 3); cause of death, n = 3 (IT = 3).
Missing cases for severe dementia, gender, n = 4 (BE = 2 | IT = 2); longest place of residence prior to death, n = 3 (BE = 2 | SP = 1); cause of death, n = 3 (BE = 1 | IT = 2).
SD, standard deviation; CVA, cerebrovascular accident.
aSignificant at the 0.05 probability level.
bP-value was determined by conducting multilevel mixed model analysis to account for the clustering at the level of GPs.
cLongest place of residence in the last year of life: ‘Elsewhere’ reported as missing cases (mild dementia, n: Belgium, 2; Italy, 1; Spain, 0 | severe dementia, n: Belgium, 1; Italy, 0; Spain, 0).
dIncludes care/nursing homes in Belgium and Italy and residential homes in Spain.