Dataset Information

Physician Approaches to Conflict with Families Surrounding End-of-Life Decision-making in the Intensive Care Unit. A Qualitative Study.

ABSTRACT:

Rationale

Families of critically ill patients are often asked to make difficult decisions to pursue, withhold, or withdraw aggressive care or resuscitative measures, exercising "substituted judgment" from the imagined standpoint of the patient. Conflict may arise between intensive care unit (ICU) physicians and family members regarding the optimal course of care.

Objectives

To characterize how ICU physicians approach and manage conflict with surrogates regarding end-of-life decision-making.

Methods

Semistructured interviews were conducted with 18 critical care physicians from four academically affiliated hospitals. Interview transcripts were analyzed using methods of grounded theory.

Results

Physicians described strategies for engaging families to resolve conflict about end-of-life decision-making and tending to families' emotional health. Physicians commonly began by gauging family receptiveness to recommendations from the healthcare team. When faced with resistance to recommendations for less aggressive care, approaches ranged from deference to family wishes to various persuasive strategies designed to change families' minds, and some of those strategies may be counterproductive or harmful. The likelihood of deferring to family in the event of conflict was associated with the perceived sincerity of the family's "substituted judgment" and the ability to control patient pain and suffering. Physicians reported concern for the family's emotional needs and made efforts to alleviate the burden on families by assuming decision-making responsibility and expressing nonabandonment and commitment to the patient. Physicians were attentive to repairing damage to their relationship with the family in the aftermath of conflict. Finally, physicians described their own emotional responses to conflict, ranging from frustration and anxiety to satisfaction with successful resolution of conflict.

Conclusions

Critical care physicians described a complex and multilayered approach to physician-family conflict. The reported strategies offer insight into pragmatic approaches to achieving resolution of conflict while attending to both family and physician emotional impact, and they also highlight some potentially unhelpful or harmful behaviors that should be avoided. Further research is needed to evaluate how these strategies are perceived by families and other ICU clinicians and how they affect patient, family, and clinician outcomes.

SUBMITTER: Mehter HM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5822405 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Physician Approaches to Conflict with Families Surrounding End-of-Life Decision-making in the Intensive Care Unit. A Qualitative Study.

Mehter Hashim M HM McCannon Jessica B JB Clark Jack A JA Wiener Renda Soylemez RS

Annals of the American Thoracic Society 20180201 2

<h4>Rationale</h4>Families of critically ill patients are often asked to make difficult decisions to pursue, withhold, or withdraw aggressive care or resuscitative measures, exercising "substituted judgment" from the imagined standpoint of the patient. Conflict may arise between intensive care unit (ICU) physicians and family members regarding the optimal course of care.<h4>Objectives</h4>To characterize how ICU physicians approach and manage conflict with surrogates regarding end-of-life decisi ...[more]

PMID: 29099239

Similar Datasets

Project description:Importance:Professional guidelines have identified key communication skills for shared decision-making for critically ill patients, but it is unclear how intensivists interpret and implement them. Objective:To compare the self-evaluations of intensivists reviewing transcripts of their own simulated intensive care unit family meetings with the evaluations of trained expert colleagues. Design, Setting, and Participants:A posttrial web-based survey of intensivists was conducted between January and March 2019. Intensivists reviewed transcripts of simulated intensive care unit family meetings in which they participated in a previous trial from October 2016 to November 2017. In the follow-up survey, participants identified if and how they performed key elements of shared decision-making for an intensive care unit patient at high risk of death. Transcript texts that intensivists self-identified as examples of key communication skills recommended by their professional society's policy on shared decision-making were categorized. Main Outcomes and Measures:Comparison of the evaluations of 2 blinded nonparticipant intensivist colleagues with the self-reported responses of the intensivists. Results:Of 116 eligible intensivists, 76 (66%) completed the follow-up survey (mean [SD] respondent age was 43.1 [8.1] years; 72% were male). Sixty-one of 76 intensivists reported conveying prognosis; however, blinded colleagues who reviewed the deidentified transcripts were less likely to report that prognosis had been conveyed than intensivists reviewing their own transcripts (42 of 61; odds ratio, 0.10; 95% CI, 0.01-0.44; P < .001). When reviewing their own transcript, intensivists reported presenting many choices, with the most common choice being code status. They also provided a variety of recommendations, with the most common being to continue the current treatment plan. Thirty-three participants (43%) reported that they offered care focused on comfort, but blinded colleagues rated only 1 (4%) as explaining this option in a clear manner. Conclusions and Relevance:In this study, guidelines for shared decision-making and end of life care were interpreted by intensivists in disparate ways. In the absence of training or personalized feedback, self-assessment of communication skills may not be interpreted consistently.

Project description:IntroductionConflict is unfortunately well-documented in the adult intensive care unit (AICU). In the context of end-of-life (EOL) decision-making (ie, the withdrawal or withholding of life-sustaining treatment), conflict commonly occurs when a consensus cannot be reached between the healthcare team and the patient's family on the 'best interests' of the critically ill, incapacitated patient. While existing literature has identified potential methods for conflict resolution, it is less clear how these approaches are perceived and used by stakeholders in the EOL decision-making process. We aim to explore this by systematically reviewing and synthesising the published evidence, which addresses the following research question: what does existing qualitative research reveal about physician approaches to addressing conflict arising in EOL decisions in the AICU?Methods and analysisPeer-reviewed qualitative studies (retrieved from MEDLINE, Project Muse, Scopus, EMBASE, Web of Science, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and LILACS) examining conflict and dispute resolution in the context of EOL decisions in the AICU setting will be included. Two reviewers will independently screen either all or a randomly selected sample of studies, with a third reviewer independently screening studies of uncertain eligibility. The 'thematic synthesis' approach will be employed to analyse the resulting data. The quality of included papers will be assessed using the 2018 Mixed-Methods Assessment Tool. The 'Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations-Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative research' approach will be used to assess our confidence in the findings.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval is not required for this review, as only published data will be included. We anticipate that the findings will be of interest to healthcare professionals working in AICUs and individuals working in bioethics, given the ethically contentious nature of EOL decisions. The findings will be disseminated at academic conferences and through open-access publication in a peer-reviewed journal.Prospero registration numberCRD42021193769.

Project description:ObjectivesTo provide an in-depth insight into the experience and perceptions of bereaved parents who have experienced end of life care decision-making for children with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions in the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU).DesignAn in-depth qualitative interview study with a sample of parents of children with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions who had died in PICU within the previous 12 months. A thematic analysis was conducted on the interview transcripts.SettingA PICU in a large National Health Service (NHS) tertiary children's hospital in the West Midlands, UK.Participants17 parents of 11 children who had died in the PICU.ResultsFive interconnected themes were identified related to end of life care decision-making:(1) parents have significant knowledge and experiences that influence the decision-making process.(2) Trusted relationships with healthcare professionals are key to supporting parents making end of life decisions.(3) Verbal and non-verbal communication with healthcare professionals impacts on the family experience.(4) Engaging with end of life care decision-making can be emotionally overwhelming, but becomes possible if parents reach a 'place of acceptance'.(5) Families perceive benefits to receiving end of life care for their child in a PICU.Conclusions and implicationsThe death of a child is an intensely emotional experience for all involved. This study adds to the limited evidence base related to parental experiences of end of life care decision-making and provides findings that have international relevance, particularly related to place of care and introduction of end of life care discussions. The expertise and previous experience of parents is highly relevant and should be acknowledged. End of life care decision-making is a complex and nuanced process; the information needs and preferences of each family are individual and need to be understood by the professionals involved in their care.

Project description:Animal approach-avoidance conflict paradigms have been used extensively to operationalize anxiety, quantify the effects of anxiolytic agents, and probe the neural basis of fear and anxiety. Results from human neuroimaging studies support that a frontal-striatal-amygdala neural circuitry is important for approach-avoidance learning. However, the neural basis of decision-making is much less clear in this context. Thus, we combined a recently developed human approach-avoidance paradigm with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify neural substrates underlying approach-avoidance conflict decision-making. Fifteen healthy adults completed the approach-avoidance conflict (AAC) paradigm during fMRI. Analyses of variance were used to compare conflict to nonconflict (avoid-threat and approach-reward) conditions and to compare level of reward points offered during the decision phase. Trial-by-trial amplitude modulation analyses were used to delineate brain areas underlying decision-making in the context of approach/avoidance behavior. Conflict trials as compared to the nonconflict trials elicited greater activation within bilateral anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, and caudate, as well as right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC). Right caudate and lateral PFC activation was modulated by level of reward offered. Individuals who showed greater caudate activation exhibited less approach behavior. On a trial-by-trial basis, greater right lateral PFC activation related to less approach behavior. Taken together, results suggest that the degree of activation within prefrontal-striatal-insula circuitry determines the degree of approach versus avoidance decision-making. Moreover, the degree of caudate and lateral PFC activation related to individual differences in approach-avoidance decision-making. Therefore, the approach-avoidance conflict paradigm is ideally suited to probe anxiety-related processing differences during approach-avoidance decision-making.

Project description:IntroductionEnd-of-life-decisions (EOLD) have become an important part of modern intensive care medicine. With increasing therapeutic possibilities on the one hand and many ICU-patients lacking decision making capacity or an advance directive on the other the decision making process is a major challenge on the intensive care unit (ICU). Currently, data are poor on factors associated with EOLD in Germany. In 2009, a new law on advance directives binding physicians and the patient's surrogate decision makers was enacted in Germany. So far it is unknown if this law influenced proceedings of EOLD making on the ICU.MethodsA retrospective analysis was conducted on all deceased patients (n = 224) in a 22-bed surgical ICU of a German university medical center from 08/2008 to 09/2010. Patient characteristics were compared between patients with an EOLD and those without an EOLD. Patients with an EOLD admitted before and after change of legislation were compared with respect to frequencies of EOLD performance as well as advance directive rates.ResultsIn total, 166 (74.1%) of deaths occurred after an EOLD. Compared to patients without an EOLD, comorbidities, ICU severity scores, and organ replacement technology did not differ significantly. EOLDs were shared within the caregiverteam and with the patient's surrogate decision makers. After law enacting, no differences in EOLD performance or frequency of advance directives (8.9% vs. 9.9%; p = 0.807) were observed except an increase of documentation efforts associated with EOLDs (18.7% vs. 43.6%; p<0.001).ConclusionsIn our ICU EOLD proceedings were performed patient-individually. But EOLDs follow a standard of shared decision making within the caregiverteam and the patient's surrogate decision makers. Enacting a law on advance directives has not affected the decision making-process in EOLDs nor has it affected population's advance care planning habits. However, it has led to increased EOLD-associated documentation on the ICU.Trial registration[corrected] ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01294189.

Dataset Information

Physician Approaches to Conflict with Families Surrounding End-of-Life Decision-making in the Intensive Care Unit. A Qualitative Study.

Rationale

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Physician Approaches to Conflict with Families Surrounding End-of-Life Decision-making in the Intensive Care Unit. A Qualitative Study.

Similar Datasets

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