Effect of ethics consultations on nonbeneficial life-sustaining treatments in the intensive care setting: a randomized controlled trial.

Context: Ethics consultations increasingly are being used to resolve conflicts about life-sustaining interventions, but few studies have reported their outcomes.

Objective: To investigate whether ethics consultations in the intensive care setting reduce the use of life-sustaining treatments delivered to patients who ultimately did not survive to hospital discharge, as well as the reactions to the consultations of physicians, nurses, and patients/surrogates.

Design: Prospective, multicenter, randomized controlled trial from November 2000 to December 2002.