Perspectives on End-of-Life Treatment among Patients with COPD: A Multicenter, Cross-sectional Study in Japan.

Perspectives on End-of-Life Treatment among Patients with COPD: A Multicenter, Cross-sectional Study in Japan. COPD. 2019 Feb 21;:1-7 Authors: Fuseya Y, Muro S, Sato S, Sato A, Tanimura K, Hasegawa K, Uemasu K, Hamakawa Y, Takahashi Y, Nakayama T, Sakai N, Fukui M, Kita H, Mio T, Mishima M, Hirai T Abstract Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a leading cause of mortality. Since patients with severe COPD may experience exacerbations and eventually face mortality, advanced care planning (ACP) has been increasingly emphasized in the recent COPD guidelines. We conducted a multicenter, cross-sectional study to survey the current perspectives of Japanese COPD patients toward ACP. "High-risk" COPD patients and their attending physicians were consecutively recruited. The patients' family configurations, understanding of COPD pathophysiology, current end-of-life care communication with physicians and family members, and preferences for invasive life-sustaining treatments including mechanical ventilation (MV) and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) were evaluated using a custom-made, structured, self-administered questionnaire. Attending physicians were also interviewed, and we evaluated the patient-physician agreement. Among the 224 eligible "high-risk" patients, 162 participated. Half of the physicians (54.4%) thought they had communicated detailed information; however, only 19.4% of the COPD patients thought the physicians did s...
Source: COPD: Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease - Category: Respiratory Medicine Tags: COPD Source Type: research