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Promoting patient decision making in life-and-death situations
1Faculty of Nursing, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
Objectives:
To review factors in the health care culture that deny seriously ill patients' last wishes regarding care.
Data Sources:
Review articles and research studies that pertain to decision making.
Conclusions:
Decision making in palliative care has been identified as an understudied area. Although there are significant benefits to being involved in treatment decision making, long-term follow-up of the consequences of active participation in the final stages of life is lacking.
Implications For Nursing Practice:
Nurses have a role to play in assisting patients and their families in treatment decision making in both the curative and palliative phase of care. A nursing intervention to promote patient involvement in decision making is described.