Attitudes of Japanese physicians toward terminal dehydration: a nationwide survey

To clarify physician attitudes toward terminal dehydration and identify the physician-related factors contributing to their attitudes.

A cross-sectional survey of Japanese physicians with a self-reported questionnaire was used.

A total of 584 responses were analyzed (response rate, 53%). In the vignette of a gastric cancer patient with an estimated survival of 1 month and almost impossible oral intake due to intestinal obstruction, 50% chose intravenous hydration of 1,000 mL/d, while 24% selected more than 1,500 mL/d. For a lung cancer patient with cachexia, 58% chose 1,000 mL/d, while 26% selected no hydration or 500 mL. Multivariate analyses revealed that the physicians with more positive attitudes toward intravenous hydration were significantly less involved in end-of-life care, more likely to regard the physiologic requirement of fluid and nutrition as important in initiating intravenous hydration, more likely to believe that intravenous hydration is effective for symptom palliation, and more likely to believe that intravenous hydration is the minimum standard of care.

Physicians have considerably divergent attitudes toward intravenous hydration for terminally ill cancer patients. To resolve the discrepancy, the priority in hydration research should be to clarify the appropriate physiologic requirements of fluid and nutrition in dying patients, the effects of intravenous hydration on patient symptoms, and the reasons why physicians consider intravenous hydration to be the minimum standard of care.