What Families Need and Physicians Deliver - Contrasting Communication Preferences between Surrogate Decision-Makers and Physicians during Outcome Prognostication in Critically-Ill TBI Patients

摘要

IntroductionSurrogate decision-makers (“surrogates”) and physicians of incapacitated patients have different views of prognosis and how it should be communicated, but this has not been investigated in neurocritically-ill patients. We examined surrogates’ communication preferences and physicians’ practices during the outcome prognostication for critically-ill traumatic brain injury (ciTBI) patients in two level-1 trauma centers and seven academic medical centers in the U.S.