Comparison 4. Effects of discharge planning on other process variables: patients’ place of discharge.
Five trials provided data on patients’ place of discharge. A meta analysis looking at the proportion of patients being discharged home failed to detect a statistical difference between groups (OR 1.15, 95% CI 0.72 to 1.82) [Moher; Sulch]. One trial [Evans] re-cruiting both medical and surgical patients reported that a greater proportion of patients allocated to discharge planning were dis-charged home compared with those receiving no formal discharge planning (difference 6% 95% CI 0.4% to 12%), this difference increasedat 9months followup(difference8.3%95%CI1.6%to 15%). Two trials failed to detect a difference in the proportion of patients discharged to a nursing home [Naughton; Hendriksen].