Clinical decision making capacity among institutionalized elders

Abstract

A descriptive study was conducted to explore the relationship among three measures of decision making capacity: (1) clinicians' opinions, (2) Pfeiffer's (1975) SPMSQ, and (3) a developmental instrument by Fitten et al. (1990) designed to measure patient clinical decision making ability. Another purpose of the study was to replicate portions of the work by Fitten et al. (1990). A convenience sample of 41 patients, four physicians, and three nurse practitioners was studied. Quantitative research techniques were employed for data collection and analysis. Significant correlations were found among all measurements of decision making capacity indicating that the developmental instrument appears to be a valid method of determining decision making capacity according to results obtained for convergent validity. The findings of this study support those reported by Fitten et al. (1990).