Social values as an independent factor affecting end of life medical decision making.

Research shows that the physician's personal attributes and social characteristics have a strong association with their end-of-life (EOL) decision making. Despite efforts to increase patient, family and surrogate input into EOL decision making, research shows the physician's input to be dominant. Our research finds that physician's social values, independent of religiosity, have a significant association with physician's tendency to withhold or withdraw life sustaining, EOL treatments.

Family caregiving to hospitalized end-of-life and acutely ill geriatric patients.

The article examines family caregiving to hospitalized older adults at the end of life (EOL). The stress stress process model was used to compare family caregiving in an EOL patient population (n=50) with family caregiving in an acutely ill elderly population (n=50) in a single Israeli hospital. A convenience sample of family caregivers was interviewed in the hospital using a structured questionnaire.