THE ESSENTIAL
- Non-hospital deaths, i.e. at home or in hospices, were more likely to occur at weekends.
- Women, divorced people and those with pancreatic cancer had a lower risk of dying on Friday and Saturday.
- Patients over the age of 75 were more likely to die during the vacation months than younger patients.
“Research supports the existence of a psychosomatic phenomenon known as the ‘holiday effect’, allowing critically ill patients to postpone their death until a given event”, wrote American scientists in a study published in the journal Journal of Clinical Oncology. As part of this work, they put forward a hypothesis. According to the team, there could be a period of time during which terminally ill cancer patients try to delay their death until family visits on the weekend or during the holidays or on a public holiday.
For the purposes of the study, the researchers analyzed data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics. These included 10,305,990 deaths caused by a malignant tumor from 2000 to 2017. The scientists looked at the days of the week and the months of the year when the deaths occurred. Weekend mortality was defined as death on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Holiday mortality was defined as death in December or January.
“They want to see those they love one last time before they die”
Each year, cancer death rates gradually increased from Monday to Thursday, then peaked on Friday and Saturday, and then decreased on Sunday. “There was a 3.4% relative difference in death rate between the peak on Friday and the lowest death rate on Monday,” can we read in the searches. According to the results, a steady increase in deaths was observed in December and January. According to the researchers, people with breast or prostate cancer were more likely to die during the holidays compared to those with lung cancer.
“These terminally ill people manage to hold on, have a start. They want to see their loved ones, their families, one last time before they die. But their loved ones work on weekdays, so they come to the hospital as soon as they can, Thursday evening, Friday, Saturday. At that time, they say goodbye… and right after, the patients let go psychologically, and their bodies too. There is a peak in deaths. is the same after the Christmas holidays”, explained to FranceInfoKanan Shah, a cancer specialist from New York and author of the study.