Does anyone ever expect to die?
Patients who come to the intensive care unit are amongst the sickest patients in our hospitals. Patients can be admitted to the intensive care unit unexpectedly (following accidents or sudden onset of illness) or as unplanned but not necessarily truly 'unexpected' admissions. These patient...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Published: |
Australian Society of Anaesthetists
2017
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| Online Access: | http://www.aaic.net.au/Document/?D=20170048 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/59167 |
| _version_ | 1848760403067142144 |
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| author | Anstey, Matthew Watts, N. Orford, N. Seppelt, I. Mitchell, I. |
| author_facet | Anstey, Matthew Watts, N. Orford, N. Seppelt, I. Mitchell, I. |
| author_sort | Anstey, Matthew |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Patients who come to the intensive care unit are amongst the sickest patients in our hospitals. Patients can be admitted to the intensive care unit unexpectedly (following accidents or sudden onset of illness) or as unplanned but not necessarily truly 'unexpected' admissions. These patients often have significant underlying chronic health issues, including metastatic cancer, advanced cardiac, respiratory, renal, or hepatic failure, or frailty, with a high likelihood of death in the ensuing months. Using the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Clinical Trials Group Point Prevalence Program, a prospective single-day observational study across 46 Australian hospitals in 2014 and 2015, we found that less than 9% of intensive care unit patients (51/577) had an advance directive available. From these results, we provide two suggestions to increase intensive care's understanding of patients' end-of-life wishes. First, systematically target 'high risk of dying' patient groups for goals of care conversations in the outpatient setting. Such groups include those where one would not be 'surprised' if they died within a year. Second, as a society, more conversations about end-of-life wishes are needed. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T10:15:13Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-59167 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T10:15:13Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Australian Society of Anaesthetists |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-591672018-02-15T05:22:09Z Does anyone ever expect to die? Anstey, Matthew Watts, N. Orford, N. Seppelt, I. Mitchell, I. Patients who come to the intensive care unit are amongst the sickest patients in our hospitals. Patients can be admitted to the intensive care unit unexpectedly (following accidents or sudden onset of illness) or as unplanned but not necessarily truly 'unexpected' admissions. These patients often have significant underlying chronic health issues, including metastatic cancer, advanced cardiac, respiratory, renal, or hepatic failure, or frailty, with a high likelihood of death in the ensuing months. Using the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Clinical Trials Group Point Prevalence Program, a prospective single-day observational study across 46 Australian hospitals in 2014 and 2015, we found that less than 9% of intensive care unit patients (51/577) had an advance directive available. From these results, we provide two suggestions to increase intensive care's understanding of patients' end-of-life wishes. First, systematically target 'high risk of dying' patient groups for goals of care conversations in the outpatient setting. Such groups include those where one would not be 'surprised' if they died within a year. Second, as a society, more conversations about end-of-life wishes are needed. 2017 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/59167 http://www.aaic.net.au/Document/?D=20170048 Australian Society of Anaesthetists restricted |
| spellingShingle | Anstey, Matthew Watts, N. Orford, N. Seppelt, I. Mitchell, I. Does anyone ever expect to die? |
| title | Does anyone ever expect to die? |
| title_full | Does anyone ever expect to die? |
| title_fullStr | Does anyone ever expect to die? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Does anyone ever expect to die? |
| title_short | Does anyone ever expect to die? |
| title_sort | does anyone ever expect to die? |
| url | http://www.aaic.net.au/Document/?D=20170048 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/59167 |