Supporting shared decision-making about cardiopulmonary resuscitation using a video-based decision-support intervention in a hospital setting: a multisite before-after pilot study.

Background: Inpatients are often prescribed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) without a shared decision-making process. Since implementation of decision aids into practice is highly sensitive to the clinical milieu, we performed a pilot study to refine our study procedures and to evaluate the acceptability and potential effectiveness of a shared decision-making intervention when implemented in a Canadian hospital setting.

Methods: In this before-after pilot study, we recruited patients and family members on the medical wards of 2 Canadian teaching hospitals between September 2015 and March 2017. The intervention consisted of viewing a CPR decision video and completing a values-clarification worksheet; follow-up discussion with the physician was encouraged. The primary feasibility outcome was acceptability of the video, and the primary effectiveness outcome was change in the Decisional Conflict Scale score (lower scores being more desirable) after the intervention. Participants rated the extent of shared decision-making using the CollaboRATE instrument.

Results: Of the 71 participants (43 patients with a mean age of 79.0 [standard deviation (SD) 11.4] yr and 28 family members with a mean age of 61.0 [SD 10.0] yr), 65 (92%) rated the CPR decision video as good to excellent. The intervention was associated with an improvement in knowledge about CPR (+2.7 points, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.2 to 3.3, effect size 1.5) and a reduction in the Decisional Conflict Scale score (-18.1 points, 95% CI -21.8 to -14.3, effect size 1.4). The 36 participants who had a discussion with a physician about CPR after watching the video rated the extent of shared decision-making as 6.3 (SD 1.7) (possible maximum score 9). There was a nonsignificant decrease in the proportion of patients with a medical order for CPR after the intervention (71% before v. 63% after, = 0.06).

Interpretation: The CPR decision video was acceptable to patients and family members. Our decision-support intervention may improve knowledge, reduce decisional conflict and reduce the prevalence of medical orders for CPR in the Canadian hospital setting.