Background: Factors leading to inappropriate critical care, that is treatment that should not be provided because it does not offer the patient meaningful benefit, have not been rigorously characterized.
Objective: We explored medical record documentation about patients who received inappropriate critical care and those who received appropriate critical care to examine factors associated with the provision of inappropriate treatment.
Design: Medical records were abstracted from 123 patients who were assessed as receiving inappropriate treatment and 66 patients who were assessed as receiving appropriate treatment but died within six months of intensive care unit (ICU) admission. We used mixed methods combining qualitative analysis of medical record documentation with multivariable analysis to examine the relationship between patient and communication factors and the receipt of inappropriate treatment, and present these within a conceptual model.
Setting: One academic health system.
Results: Medical records revealed 21 themes pertaining to prognosis and factors influencing treatment aggressiveness. Four themes were independently associated with patients receiving inappropriate treatment according to physicians. When decision making was not guided by physicians (odds ratio [OR] 3.76, confidence interval [95% CI] 1.21-11.70) or was delayed by patient/family (OR 4.52, 95% CI 1.69-12.04), patients were more likely to receive inappropriate treatment. Documented communication about goals of care (OR 0.29, 95% CI 0.10-0.84) and patient's preferences driving decision making (OR 0.02, 95% CI 0.00-0.27) were associated with lower odds of receiving inappropriate treatment.
Conclusions: Medical record documentation suggests that inappropriate treatment occurs in the setting of communication and decision-making patterns that may be amenable to intervention.
Keywords: decision making; end of life; futile treatment; intensive care unit.