Advance Directives and End-of-life Decision Making in Intensive Care Medicine in Germany

NCT ID: NCT01294189

Last Updated: 2011-02-11

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

COMPLETED

Total Enrollment

224 participants

Study Classification

OBSERVATIONAL

Study Start Date

2008-08-31

Study Completion Date

2011-02-28

Brief Summary

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Description of the decision making process as well as the practices of end of life care in an ICU of a German university hospital during the period when changes of German legislation occurred.

Detailed Description

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Most patients on the intensive care unit (ICU) die after an end-of-life decision (EOLD) has been made (Sprung et al. 2003). On September 1st 2009 the "advance-directives-law" was inured in Germany considering a written advance directive of an adult binding for physicians and the patient´s surrogate decision makers if it fits into the medical context (BGBL 2009). There is a lack of data describing the process and the factors associated with end-of-life-decisions in ICUs in Germany in detail.

The purpose of this observational study is to describe the decision making process as well as the practices of end of life care in an ICU of a German university hospital during a period when changes of German legislation occurred.

Conditions

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Death

Study Design

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Observational Model Type

CASE_ONLY

Study Time Perspective

RETROSPECTIVE

Study Groups

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ICU-patients that died on the ICU

ICU-patients (post-operative and non operative patients) will be enrolled in the study. All patients are followed until their death on the ICU.

No interventions assigned to this group

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* All patients admitted to the ICU
* All patients discharged death from the ICU

Exclusion Criteria

* All patients discharged alive from the ICU
Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sponsors

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Charite University, Berlin, Germany

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Charite University, Berlin, Germany

Principal Investigators

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Jan-Peter Braun, MD

Role: STUDY_DIRECTOR

Charite University, Berlin, Germany

Locations

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Department of Anesthesiology and Operative Intensive Care Medicine Campus Charité Mitte

Berlin, State of Berlin, Germany

Site Status

Countries

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Germany

References

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Graw JA, Spies CD, Wernecke KD, Braun JP. Managing end-of-life decision making in intensive care medicine--a perspective from Charite Hospital, Germany. PLoS One. 2012;7(10):e46446. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0046446. Epub 2012 Oct 1.

Reference Type DERIVED
PMID: 23049701 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

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EOLD

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id

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