This readme file was generated on 2026-07-29 by Farina Hodiamont # GENERAL INFORMATION Title of Dataset: Data to the COMPANION Study: Contact-Level Dataset of Adult Palliative Care Patients in Germany Description: This dataset is a processed version of data collected in the COMPANION study, which aimed to develop a nationally applicable, complexity-based casemix classification for adult palliative care patients in Germany. The published dataset contains the variables used for the analyses of a forthcoming paper and is not the full raw dataset. It includes contact-level data from adult patients receiving specialized palliative care in specialized outpatient palliative care, inpatient palliative care units, or specialist palliative care advisory teams. Detailed information on the overall study design, data collection procedures, and measurement instruments is available in the published COMPANION study protocol (DOI: 10.1186/s12904-021-00897-x). . Authors: Name: Farina Hodiamont ORCID: 0000-0001-7351-7092 Institution: Department of Palliative Medicine, LMU University Hospital, LMU Medizin, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany Email: farina.hodiamont@med.uni-muenchen.de Name: Julia Wikert ORCID: 0000-0002-7622-9923 Institution: Department of Palliative Medicine, LMU University Hospital, LMU Medizin, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany Email: Julia.wikert@med.uni-muenchen.de Name: Daniela Gesell ORCID: 0000-0003-1930-8745 Institution: Department of Palliative Medicine, LMU University Hospital, LMU Medizin, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany Email: Daniela.gesell@med.uni-muenchen.de Name: Eva Lehmann-Emele ORCID: 0000-0002-1466-8779 Institution: Department of Palliative Medicine, LMU University Hospital, LMU Medizin, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany; Department of Palliative Medicine, University Medical Center, Göttingen, Germany Principal Investigator: Name: Claudia Bausewein ORCID: 0000-0002-0958-3041 Institution: Department of Palliative Medicine, LMU University Hospital, LMU Medizin, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany Email: Claudia.bausewein@med.uni-muenchen.de Date of data collection: 2021-04-01 to 2022-09-30 Geographic location of data collection: Germany (Federal States: Federal States: Bavaria, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringia) Information about funding sources that supported the collection of the data: Data were collected in the COMPANION project, funded by the German Federal Joint Committee Innovation Fund (Innovationsfonds des Gemeinsamen Bundesausschusses), grant number 01VSF18018. # SHARING/ACCESS Data Licenses/restrictions placed on the data: CC BY 4.0 Was data derived from another source? If yes, list source(s): Yes. Cost-related variables were derived using cost and activity data from the participating study centres. These data were used to calculate contact-level costs based on documented staff minutes. # DATA & FILE OVERVIEW File List: - COMPANION_dataset_eng_V1.sav – SPSS version of the processed analytical dataset, including variable and value labels. - COMPANION_dataset_eng_V1.csv – CSV version of the processed analytical dataset without embedded labels. - COMPANION_codebook_eng.xlsx – tabular codebook including variable names, labels, coding. - COMPANION_codebook_eng.pdf – PDF version of the codebook. Additional related data collected that was not included in the current data package: - More detailed resource-use data, including minutes by profession, are not included in this data package. - The dataset includes total cost per contact and total cost per contact excluding costs attributable to systemic time only. More detailed cost information is not included. - Team identifiers were excluded for data protection reasons. - Calendar dates were removed and replaced by a relative time variable. - The released dataset is anonymized. # METHODOLOGICAL INFORMATION Description of methods used for collection/generation of data: Data were collected prospectively by staff at the participating study centres over a period of at least three months per centre. The unit of data collection was the patient contact. In the study context, a patient contact refers to any patient-related activity, including direct contact with the patient, contact with relatives or other professionals regarding the patient, visits, interventions, team communication, and documentation. Methods for processing the data: The published dataset is not the raw dataset. Initial data cleaning was performed before publication. Contacts documented in the palliative phase “bereavement”, contacts with AKPS = 0, contacts with zero documented minutes, and contacts with missing values in predictor variables were removed from the released dataset. Team identifiers were removed for data protection reasons. Calendar dates were also removed to reduce re-identification risk. Because date information was required for aggregation of contact-level data to phase-level or episode-level analyses, the original date variable was replaced by a relative time variable indicating the number of days since the start of the treatment episode, with day 1 representing the first day of the episode. Describe any quality-assurance procedures performed on the data: Cleaning procedures were performed prior to publication. These procedures included the exclusion of records not eligible for analysis and records with incomplete key predictor information. Further details on study procedures and data collection are available in the published COMPANION study protocol.