Difficulty of the decision-making process in emergency departments for end-of-life patients

Background: In emergency departments, for some patients, death is preceded by a decision of withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatments. This concerns mainly patients over 80, with many comorbidities. The decision-making process of these decisions in emergency departments has not been extensively studied, especially for noncommunicating patients.

Aim: The purpose of this study is to describe the decision-making process of withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatments in emergency departments for noncommunicating patients and the outcome of said patients.

Design: We conducted a prospective multicenter study in three emergency departments of university hospitals from September 2015 to January 2017.

Results: We included 109 patients in the study. Fifty-eight (53.2%) patients were coming from nursing homes and 52 (47.7%) patients had dementia. Decisions of withholding life-sustaining treatment concerned 93 patients (85.3%) and were more frequent when a surrogate decision maker was present 61 (65.6%) versus seven (43.8%) patients. The most relevant factors that lead to these decisions were previous functional limitation (71.6%) and age (69.7%). Decision was taken by two physicians for 80 patients (73.4%). The nursing staff and general practitioner were, respectively, involved in 31 (28.4%) and two (1.8%) patients. A majority of the patients had no advance directives (89.9%), and the relatives were implicated in the decision-making process for 96 patients (88.1%). Death in emergency departments occurred for 47 patients (43.1%), and after 21 days, 84 patients (77.1 %) died.

Conclusion: There is little anticipation in end-of-life decisions. Discussion with patients concerning their end-of-life wishes and the writing of advance directives, especially for patients with chronic diseases, must be encouraged early.