Clinical decision making about end-of-life decisions of persons over 65: Perceptions of clinicians

Abstract

A descriptive study was conducted to explore whether or not there were any differences in perceptions of physicians, acute care nurses, long-term care nurses, and nurse practitioners associated with end-of-life decision making for people over 65 years of age. A convenience sample of 95 health care providers, all of whom were involved in direct patient care was used. Quantitative research techniques were employed for data collection and analysis. Statistically significant differences were found between four individual items on the CDMS and the health care providers. It was found that long-term care nurses believed items associated with pain and suffering, and culture to be more important than either physicians or acute care nurses, where as they found physicians input less important. A statistical significance was also found between the years spent in practice by health care providers and scores on the CDMS.