Impact of advance directives on the variability between intensivists in the decisions to forgo life-sustaining treatment.

ABSTRACT:

Background

There is wide variability between intensivists in the decisions to forgo life-sustaining treatment (DFLST). Advance directives (ADs) allow patients to communicate their end-of-life wishes to physicians. We assessed whether ADs reduced variability in DFLSTs between intensivists.

Methods

We conducted a multicenter, prospective, simulation study. Eight patients expressed their wishes in ADs after being informed about DFLSTs by an intensivist-investigator. The participating intensivists answered ten questions about the DFLSTs of each patient in two scenarios, referring to patients' characteristics without ADs (round 1) and then with (round 2). DFLST score ranged from 0 (no-DFLST) to 10 (DFLST for all questions). The main outcome was variability in DFLSTs between inten

SUBMITTER: Smirdec M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7709386 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature