Greenwall Study Says Decision Makers Hold Overly Optimistic Expectations for Critically Ill Patient Outcomes
More than half of the family and friends making decisions for critically ill patients have significantly different estimates for the patient’s survival than their doctor—but that’s not only because of a misunderstanding, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers report in today’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The majority of those differences also were due to the decision maker holding fundamentally different and overly optimistic beliefs about the patient’s prognosis.
The research team anticipates that this finding will help in training physicians to better communicate with the family and friends of patients so they can make the best decisions for their loved one...