Appropriateness of intensive care treatments near the end of life during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unlabelled: The patient and family perspective on the appropriateness of intensive care unit (ICU) treatments involves preferences, values and social constructs beyond medical criteria. The clinician's perception of inappropriateness is more reliant on clinical judgment. Earlier consultation with families before ICU admission and patient education on the outcomes of life-sustaining therapies may help reconcile these provider-patient disagreements.

Dissonance on perceptions of end-of-life needs between health-care providers and members of the public: Quantitative cross-sectional surveys.

Objective: To investigate views, determinants and barriers to end-of-life discussions for doctors, nurses and members of the public (MoP) and their acceptability of risk prediction tools.

Methods: Concurrent surveys of 360 doctors and nurses and 497 MoP.

Results: Sixty per cent of clinicians reported high confidence in initiating end-of-life discussions, and 55.

Are We Making Progress on Communication with People Who Are Near the End of Life in the Australian Health System? A Thematic Analysis.

Initiating end-of-life (EoL) discussions with patients is often delayed or avoided altogether by healthcare practitioners even in light of imminent death. This continues despite the availability of guidelines and conceptual frameworks on how to communicate prognoses at EoL. We surveyed healthcare practitioners to elicit their exposure to and confidence in EoL discussions and to better understand factors that enable or challenge the initiation of discussions in Australian healthcare settings.