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Background: Timely identification of patients in need of palliative care is especially challenging in a geriatric population because of prognostic uncertainty. The Supportive and Palliative Care Indicators Tool (SPICT™) aims at facilitating this identification, yet has not been validated in a geriatric population.

Objective: This study validates the SPICT in a geriatric patient population admitted to the hospital.

Design: This is a retrospective cohort study.

Setting: Subject were patients admitted to the acute geriatric ward of a Belgian university hospital between January 1 and June 30, 2014.

Measurements: Data including demographics, functional status, comorbidities, treatment limitation decision (TLD), and one-year mortality were collected. SPICT was measured retrospectively by an independent assessor.

Results: Out of 435 included patients, 54.7% had a positive SPICT, using a cut-off value of 2 for the general indicators …