End-of-life care discussions 'do not impact on patients' health'
Wednesday 28th September 2011
Discussions about end-of-life care do not adversely affect the health of patients, research shows.
A study published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine has found that patients who opt to discuss end-of-life care with their doctors have similar survival rates as those who do not.
Additionally, there were no survival differences for patients who had a living will in their medical record and those who did not.
Lead researcher Stacy M Fischer said: "Our findings are reassuring. They support health care providers, who can initiate these discussions, and policy makers, who seek to reimburse these time consuming discussions."
According to authors, these findings are also important to patients and their families, who want to hold these vital discussions.
This follows a paper in journal Mayo Clinical Proceedings which found that few patients talked about end-of-life care, despite the fact that it eases the burden on families.
Written by Mathew Horton
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