Contribution of information about acute and geriatric characteristics to decisions about life-sustaining treatment for old patients in intensive care.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Life-sustaining treatment (LST) in the intensive care unit (ICU) is withheld or withdrawn when there is no reasonable expectation of beneficial outcome. This is especially relevant in old patients where further functional decline might be detrimental for the self-perceived quality of life. However, there still is substantial uncertainty involved in decisions about LST. We used the framework of information theory to assess that uncertainty by measuring information processed during decision-making.

Methods

Datasets from two multicentre studies (VIP1, VIP2) with a total of 7488 ICU patients aged 80 years or older were analysed concerning the contribution of information about the acute illness, age, gender, frailty and other geriatric characteristics to decisions abou

SUBMITTER: Beil M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9818057 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature