Shah Kanan, Tao Anna, Chino Junzo, Chino Fumiko
NYU Langone Health.
Tufts University Medical Center.
Res Sq. 2024 Jul 10:rs.3.rs-4708726. doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4708726/v1.
Studies support the existence of psychosomatic phenomena that enable critically ill patients to postpone death until a specific event. We assessed for this effect in cancer by examining variability in deaths at the month and weekend levels using the National Center for Health Statistics database. We found that deaths from cancer were not uniformly distributed temporally. There was a relative 3.3% difference death rate between the peak on Saturday and nadir on Monday, and relative 10.2% difference in rate of death between the peak of deaths in January and nadir in February. The "weekend effect" could be present in 1 in 200 cancer deaths and the "holiday effect" in 1 in 100 cancer deaths. Temporal variation may reflect a small portion of patients are able to "hold on" for a limited amount of time. This uneven distribution of cancer deaths highlights the importance of improving communication and facilitating end-of-life discussions.
研究支持心身现象的存在，即重病患者能够将死亡推迟到某个特定事件发生之时。我们利用美国国家卫生统计中心数据库，通过研究癌症患者在月度和周末层面的死亡差异，对这一效应进行了评估。我们发现，癌症死亡并非在时间上均匀分布。周六的死亡高峰与周一的死亡低谷之间的死亡率相对差异为3.3%，1月的死亡高峰与2月的死亡低谷之间的死亡率相对差异为10.2%。“周末效应”可能在每200例癌症死亡中有1例出现，“节假日效应”可能在每100例癌症死亡中有1例出现。时间变化可能反映出一小部分患者能够在有限时间内“坚持”。癌症死亡的这种不均衡分布凸显了改善沟通和推动临终讨论的重要性。
