• Critical care medicine · Apr 2022

    Observational Study

    The Association Between the Decision to Withdraw Life-Sustaining Therapy and Patient Mortality in U.K. ICUs.

    • Ritesh Maharaj, David A Harrison, and Kathryn Rowan.
    • Department of Health Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom.
    • Crit. Care Med. 2022 Apr 1; 50 (4): 576585576-585.

    ObjectivesDifferences in decisions to limit life-sustaining therapy are often supported by perceptions that patients receive unnecessary and expensive treatment which provide negligible survival benefit. However, the assumption behind those beliefs-that is, that life-sustaining therapy provides no significant marginal survival benefit-remains unproven. Our objective was to quantify the effects of variations in decisions to withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment on 180-day mortality in critically ill patients.DesignRetrospective observational cohort study of a national clinical database.SettingAdult ICUs participating in the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Center Case Mix Program in the United Kingdom.PatientsAdult patients admitted to general ICUs between April 1, 2009, and March 31, 2016.Measurements And Main ResultsDuring the study period, 795,721 patients were admitted to 247 ICUs across the United Kingdom. A decision to withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment was made for 92,327 patients (11.6%). A multilevel model approach was used to estimate ICU-level practice variation. The ICU-level practice variation was then used as an instrument to measure the effects of decision to withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment on 180-day mortality. The marginal population was estimated to be 5.9% of the total cohort. A decision to withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment was associated with a marginal increase in 180-day mortality of 25.6% (95% CI, 23.2-27.9%).ConclusionsDecision to withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment in critically ill adults in the United Kingdom was associated with increased 180-day mortality in the marginal patients. The increased mortality from a decision to withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment in the marginal patient may be informative when establishing patients' preferences and evaluating the cost-effectiveness of intensive treatments.Copyright © 2022 by the Society of Critical Care Medicine and Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…

What will the 'Medical Journal of You' look like?

Start your free 21 day trial now.

We guarantee your privacy. Your email address will not be shared.