Critically ill patients sometimes have such a poor prognosis that cardiopulmonary resuscitation for cardiac arrest (CPR) would not help. They are so weak that they would not survive the treatment. If they survive, they do so with even poorer quality of life. The physician can then write a so-called DNR decision, which means that CPR should not be performed.
Mona Pettersson, PhD student at CRB, writes her thesis on these decisions. I have previously written about her first study, in which she interviewed nurses about their experiences of DNR decisions at Swedish hematology and oncology departments.
This summer the Journal of Palliative Care and Medicine published the second study, in which physicians were interviewed about their experiences of these decisions.
In the interview material, Mona Pettersson discerns three roles that physicians perceive they have. They act as decision maker, as patient advocate and mediator for relatives, and as team member. Physicians describe their experiences of these roles, such as the importance of making clear to relatives that it is the physician who makes the decision – so that relatives don’t risk feeling guilty.
The interviews with physicians also contain descriptions of ethical difficulties associated with DNR decisions. Although the physicians emphasize that the decision is made on medical grounds, they also describe ethical challenges and trade-offs. The decisions seem to be especially difficult in hematology wards, where patients can get intensive treatment for a long time, and where even the treatment makes them ill, but almost up to the last moment can be regarded as treatable. Here decisions are made quickly and at a late stage. Physicians’ experiences of the decision not to resuscitate vary from experiencing that they make themselves God, to experiencing it as just one medical decision among others.
In her conclusion, Mona Pettersson emphasizes that the results indicate how DNR decisions are made not only on medical grounds (such as prognosis and prospect of surviving cardiopulmonary resuscitation). They are made also with reference also to ethical values such as autonomy and quality of life after resuscitation.
In her future research, Mona Petterson will examine the ethical skills needed in DNR decisions and how they can be learned and developed.
Pär Segerdahl
Pettersson, M. Hedström, M. and Höglund, A. Physicians’ experiences of do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders in hematology and oncology care – a qualitative study. Journal of Palliative Care and Medicine. 2016. DOI: 10.4172 / 2165-7386.1000275
This post in Swedish
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