Background
End-of-life discussions often are not initiated until close to death, even in the presence of life-limiting illness or frailty. Previous research shows that doctors may not explicitly verbalize approaching end-of-life in the foreseeable future, despite shifting their focus to comfort care. This may limit patients’ opportunity to receive information and plan for the future. General Practitioners (GPs) have a key role in caring for increasing numbers of patients approaching end-of-life.
Objective
To explore GPs’ thought processes when deciding whether to initiate end-of-life discussions.
Methods
A qualitative approach was used. We purposively recruited 15 GPs or GP trainees from South-East Queensland, Australia, and each participated in a semi-structured interview. Transcripts were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis.
Results
Australian GPs believe they have a responsibility to initiate end-of-life conversations, and identify several triggers to do so. Some also describe caution in raising this sensitive topic, related to patient, family, cultural and personal factors.
Conclusions
These findings enable the development of approaches to support GPs to initiate end-of-life discussions that are cognizant both of GPs’ sense of responsibility for these discussions, and factors that may contribute to caution initiating them, such as anticipated patient response, cultural considerations, societal taboos, family dynamics and personal challenges to doctors.
Background
As doctors who provide care across the life-course, general practitioners (GPs) play a key role in initiating timely end-of-life discussions. Nonetheless, these discussions are often not initiated until close to death. Given the ageing of the population, GPs will be confronted with end-of-life care more often, and this needs to become a core skill for all GPs.
Objective
To describe GPs’ approach to initiating end-of-life discussions.
Methods
Fifteen GPs or GP trainees from South-East Queensland, Australia, were purposively recruited to participate in a semi-structured interview. We analysed transcripts using a thematic analysis.
Results
GPs’ approach to initiating end-of-life discussions was summarized by four themes: (1) Preparing the ground; (2) finding an entry point; (3) tailoring communication and (4) involving the family.
Conclusions
Emphasis on the doctor–patient relationship; assessing patient readiness for end-of-life discussions; and sensitive information delivery is consistent with factors previously reported to be important to both GPs and patients in this context. Our findings provide a framework for GPs initiating end-of-life discussions, which must be tailored to patient and GP personality factors. Further research is required to evaluate its outcomes.
BackgroundEmergency physicians frequently assess risk of acute cardiac events (ACEs) in patients with undifferentiated chest pain. Such estimates have been shown to have moderate to high sensitivity for ACE but are conservative. Little is known about the factors implicitly used by physicians to determine the pretest probability of risk. This study sought to identify the accuracy of physician risk estimates for ACE in patients presenting to the ED with chest pain and to identify the demographic and clinical information emergency physicians use in their determination of patient risk.MethodsThis study used data from two prospective studies of consenting adult patients presenting to the ED with symptoms of possible acute coronary syndrome. ED physicians estimated the pretest probability of ACE. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to identify predictors of physician risk estimates. Logistic regression was used to determine whether there was a correlation between physicians’ estimated risk and ACE.ResultsIncreasing age, male sex, abnormal ECG features, heavy/crushing chest pain and risk factors were correlated with physician risk estimates. Physician risk estimates were consistently found to be higher than the expected proportion of ACE from the sampled population.ConclusionPhysicians systematically overestimate ACE risk. A range of factors are associated with physician risk estimates. These include factors strongly predictive of ACE, such as age and ECG characteristics. They also include other factors that have been shown to be unreliable predictors of ACE in an ED setting, such as typicality of pain and risk factors.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.