CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne
-
Review Meta Analysis
The "surprise question" for predicting death in seriously ill patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
The surprise question - "Would I be surprised if this patient died in the next 12 months?" - has been used to identify patients at high risk of death who might benefit from palliative care services. Our objective was to systematically review the performance characteristics of the surprise question in predicting death. ⋯ The surprise question performs poorly to modestly as a predictive tool for death, with worse performance in noncancer illness. Further studies are needed to develop accurate tools to identify patients with palliative care needs and to assess the surprise question for this purpose.