Patient Age and Decisions to Withhold Life-Sustaining Treatments from Seriously Ill, Hospitalized Adults
Published in: Annals of Internal Medicine, v. 130, no. 2, Jan. 19, 1999, p. 116-125
Posted on RAND.org on January 01, 1999
BACKGROUND: Patient age may influence decisions to withhold life-sustaining treatments, independent of patients' preferences for or ability to benefit from such treatments. Controversy exists about the appropriateness of using age as a criterion for making treatment decisions. OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of age on decisions to withhold life-sustaining therapies. DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. Setting: Five medical centers participating in the Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatments (SUPPORT). PATIENTS: 9105 hospitalized adults who had one of nine illnesses associated with an average 6-month mortality rate of 50%. MEASUREMENTS: Outcomes were the presence and timing of decisions to withhold ventilator support, surgery, and dialysis. Adjustment was made for sociodemographic characteristics, prognoses, baseline function, patients' preferences for life-extending care, and physicians' under- standing of patients' preferences for life-extending care. RESULTS: The median patient age was 63 years; 44% of patients were women, and 53% survived to 180 days. In adjusted analyses, older age was associated with higher rates of withholding each of the three life-sustaining treatments studied. For ventilator support, the rate of decisions to withhold therapy increased 15% with each decade of age (hazard ratio, 1.15 [95% Cl, 1.12 to 1.19]); for surgery, the increase per decade was 19% (hazard ratio, 1.19 [Cl, 1.12 to 1.27]); and for dialysis, the increase per decade was 12% (hazard ratio, 1.12 [Cl, 1.06 to 1. 1 9]). Physicians underestimated older patients' preferences for life-extending care; adjustment for this underestimation resulted in an attenuation of the association between age and decisions to withhold treatments. CONCLUSION: Even after adjustment for differences in patients' prognoses and preferences, older age was associated with higher rates of decisions to withhold ventilator support, surgery, and dialysis.
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