Beliefs and attitudes of nurses and physicians about do not resuscitate orders and who should speak to patients and families about them.

Objective: Both physicians and nurses play important roles in discussing do not resuscitate (DNR) orders with patients and surrogates. However, the beliefs and attitudes of health professionals about the role nurses should play in this process have received little systematic study.

Design And Setting: An anonymous survey was conducted of 217 attending internists, 132 medical house officers, and 219 staff nurses working on the medical floors and units at two teaching hospitals about their beliefs, attitudes, and confidence regarding DNR discussions.

A prospective trial of a new policy eliminating signed consent for do not resuscitate orders.

Background: Some institutions require patients and families to give signed consent for Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders, especially in New York State. As this may be a barrier to discussions about DNR orders,we changed a signed consent policy to a witnessed verbal consent policy,simplified and modified the DNR order forms, and educated the staff at 1 hospital, comparing the effects with an affiliated hospital where the policy was not changed.

Design: Prospective natural experiment with intervention and comparison sites.