OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of age on hospital resource use for seriously ill adults, and to explore whether age-related differences in resource use are explained by patients' severity of illness and preferences for ...

BACKGROUND: Medical treatment decisions should be based on the preferences of informed patients or their proxies and on the expected outcomes of treatment. Because seriously ill patients are at risk for cardiac arrest, examination ...

CONTEXT: Previous studies have documented that cancer patients tend to overestimate the probability of long-term survival. If patient preferences about the trade-offs between the risks and benefits associated with alternative ...

BACKGROUND: During serious illness, patient preferences regarding life-sustaining treatments play an important role in medical decisions. However, little is known about life-sustaining preference stability in this population ...

CONTEXT: Health values (utilities or preferences for health states) are often incorporated into clinical decisions and health care policy when issues of quality vs length of life arise, but little is known about health values ...

BACKGROUND: Physicians are frequently unaware of patient preferences for end-of-life care. Identifying and exploring barriers to patient-physician communication about end-of-life issues may help guide physicians and ...

BACKGROUND: Renal failure requiring dialysis in the setting of hospitalization for serious illness is a poor prognostic sign, and dialysis and aggressive care are sometimes withheld. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the clinical ...

BACKGROUND: Older age is associated with less aggressive treatment and higher short-term mortality due to serious illness. It is not known whether less aggressive care contributes to this survival disadvantage in elderly ...

CONTEXT: The epidemiology of do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders for hospitalized patients has been reported, but little is known about factors associated with the use of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). OBJECTIVE: To identify ...

PURPOSE: For patients hospitalized with serious illnesses, we identified factors associated with a stated preference to forgo cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), examined physician-patient communication about these issues, ...