Nationwide continuous monitoring of end-of-life care via representative networks of general practitioners in Europe

Table 6 Representativitity of reported deaths in the EURO SENTIMELC study 2009–2010

		Belgium			The Netherlands			Italy			Spain
		Non-sudden deaths in the SENTI-MELC study	Non-sudden deaths in the 2007 death certificate study		Non-sudden deaths in the SENTI-MELC study	Non-sudden deaths in the 2005 death certificate study		All deaths in the SENTI-MELC study	All deaths in the country 2007		All deaths in the SENTI-MELC study	All deaths in the regions 2010
		%*	%*	p**	%†	%†	p**	%	%	p**	%	%	P**
		N = 928	N = 2729		N = 635	N = 63038		N = 2783	N = 572881		N = 388	N = 67233
Age	1-64	13	16	0.01	18	21	ns	13	14	ns	11	15	ns
	65-84	50	52		50	36		48	50		46	46
	85+	37	32		32	43		39	36		43	39
Gender	Male	46	47	ns	47	51	.04	48	49	ns	53	52	ns
	Female	54	53		53	49		52	51		47	48
Place of death§	Home	23	21	.0001	44	33	ns	48	‡	-	48	‡	-
	Residential home	31	25		18	16		7	‡		11	‡
	Hospital PCU/hospice	45	51		38	47		43	‡		41	‡

* Numbers for Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of the country (60% of the population) only, due to absence of death certificates database in the French-speaking part of Belgium.
† Excluding nursing home deaths in the Netherlands.
‡ Unknown for Italy and Spain. Although data on place of death are not available in Italy from the national official statistics, the results for cancer deaths were similar to the ISDOC study figures of 2003 [45].
§ IT and SP: each 1% POD elsewhere; BE 3% other.
**p-values using Fisher exact test.

ISSN: 2731-4553