Unknown

Dataset Information

0

The impact of healthcare professionals' personality and religious beliefs on the decisions to forego life sustaining treatments: an observational, multicentre, cross-sectional study in Greek intensive care units.


ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVES:To assess the opinion of intensive care unit (ICU) personnel and the impact of their personality and religious beliefs on decisions to forego life-sustaining treatments (DFLSTs). SETTING:Cross-sectional, observational, national study in 18 multidisciplinary Greek ICUs, with >6 beds, between June and December 2015. PARTICIPANTS:149 doctors and 320 nurses who voluntarily and anonymously answered the End-of-Life (EoL) attitudes, Personality (EPQ) and Religion (SpREUK) questionnaires. Multivariate analysis was used to detect the impact of personality and religious beliefs on the DFLSTs. RESULTS:The participation rate was 65.7%. Significant differences in DFLSTs between doctors and nurses were identified. 71.4% of doctors and 59.8% of nurses stated that the family was not properly informed about DFLST and the main reason was the family's inability to understand medical details. 51% of doctors expressed fear of litigation and 47% of them declared that this concern influenced the information given to family and nursing staff. 7.5% of the nurses considered DFLSTs dangerous, criminal or illegal. Multivariate logistic regression identified that to be a nurse and to have a high neuroticism score were independent predictors for preferring the term 'passive euthanasia' over 'futile care' (OR 4.41, 95% CI 2.21 to 8.82, p<0.001,?and OR 1.59, 95%?CI 1.03 to 2.72, p<0.05,?respectively). Furthermore, to be a nurse and to have a high-trust religious profile were related to unwillingness to withdraw mechanical ventilation. Fear of litigation and non-disclosure of the information to the family in case of DFLST were associated with a psychoticism personality trait (OR 2.45, 95%?CI 1.25 to 4.80, p<0.05). CONCLUSION:We demonstrate that fear of litigation is a major barrier to properly informing a patient's relatives and nursing staff. Furthermore, aspects of personality and religious beliefs influence the attitudes of ICU personnel when making decisions to forego life-sustaining treatments.

SUBMITTER: Ntantana A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5577864 | biostudies-other | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

altmetric image

Publications

The impact of healthcare professionals' personality and religious beliefs on the decisions to forego life sustaining treatments: an observational, multicentre, cross-sectional study in Greek intensive care units.

Ntantana Asimenia A   Matamis Dimitrios D   Savvidou Savvoula S   Marmanidou Kyriaki K   Giannakou Maria M   Gouva Μary Μ   Nakos George G   Koulouras Vasilios V  

BMJ open 20170721 7


<h4>Objectives</h4>To assess the opinion of intensive care unit (ICU) personnel and the impact of their personality and religious beliefs on decisions to forego life-sustaining treatments (DFLSTs).<h4>Setting</h4>Cross-sectional, observational, national study in 18 multidisciplinary Greek ICUs, with >6 beds, between June and December 2015.<h4>Participants</h4>149 doctors and 320 nurses who voluntarily and anonymously answered the End-of-Life (EoL) attitudes, Personality (EPQ) and Religion (SpREU  ...[more]

Similar Datasets

| S-EPMC10964634 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC7456082 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC4250141 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC10133376 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC1266239 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC7367465 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC8022316 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC8626275 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC7083335 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC9580036 | biostudies-literature