• Thomas Marcus Paulus Nijdam, Duco Willem Pieter Marie Laane, Tim Ellen Eloeska Schiepers, Diederik Pieter Johan Smeeing, Diederik Hendrik Ruth Kempen, Hanna Cunera Willems, and Detlef van der Velde.
• Department of Trauma Surgery, St. Antonius Hospital, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
• Eur J Trauma Emerg Surg. 2023 Aug 1; 49 (4): 183518441835-1844.

PurposeFor geriatric hip fracture patients, the decision between surgery and palliative, non-operative management is made through shared decision making (SDM). For this conversation, a physician must be familiar with the patient's goals of care (GOC). These are predominantly unknown for hip fracture patients and challenging to assess in acute setting. The objective was to explore these GOC of geriatric patients in case of a hip fracture.MethodsAn expert panel gathered possible outcomes after a hip fracture, which were transformed into statements where participants indicated their relative importance on a 100-point scoring scale during interviews. These GOC were ranked using medians and deemed important if the median score was 90 or above. Patients were aged 70 years or older with a hip contusion due to similarities with the hip fracture population. Three cohorts based on frailty criteria and the diagnosis of dementia were made.ResultsPreserving cognitive function, being with family and being with partner scored in all groups among the most important GOC. Both non-frail and frail geriatric patients scored return to pre-fracture mobility and maintaining independence among the most important GOC, where proxies of patients with a diagnosis of dementia scored not experiencing pain as the most important GOC.ConclusionAll groups scored preserving cognitive function, being with family and being with partner among the most important GOC. The most important GOC should be discussed when a patient is presented with a hip fracture. Since patients preferences vary, a patient-centered assessment of the GOC remains essential.© 2023. The Author(s).

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