Patient Beliefs and Preferences Regarding Surrogate Decision Makers.

CONCLUSIONS: A substantial proportion of patients are unaware that someone other than their preferred SDM may be asked to make decisions for them. Providers should explicitly ask patients about their preferences, including whom the patient's preferred SDM would be, and should encourage the patient to designate a healthcare proxy when his or her preferred SDM is not the default SDM designated by local law. Although there are inherent problems with using SDMs, using the person preferred by the patient should result in a greater chance of following the patient's wishes for medical treatment. PMID: 30180245 [PubMed - in process]
Source: Southern Medical Journal - Category: General Medicine Tags: South Med J Source Type: research