Family medicine
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The purpose of this analysis is to determine the effect of the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II score and other clinical variables on survival following cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and to identify patient subpopulations with extremely poor survival. ⋯ The APACHE II score is a useful predictor of failure to survive to discharge following CPR. Several groups of patients were identified with negligible rates of survival to discharge. Physicians should use such prediagnostic information to provide patients with informed consent when discussing do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders. We suggest that physicians make a special effort to address the DNR status of patients falling to one of the negligible-survival groups identified by this study.