The patient
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Seriously ill people at high risk of death face difficult decisions, especially concerning the extent of medical intervention. Given the inherent difficulty and complexity of these decisions, the care they receive often does not align with their preferences. Patient decision aids that educate individuals about options and help them construct preferences about life-sustaining care may reduce the mismatch between the care people say they want and the care they receive. The quantity and quality of patient decision aids for those at high risk of death, however, are unknown. ⋯ Researchers increasingly recognize the environmental scan as an optimal method for studying real-world interventions, such as patient decision aids. This study will advance our understanding of the availability, quality, and use of decision aids for life-sustaining interventions targeted at seriously ill patients. We also aim to provide patients, their families, and friends, along with their clinicians, a broad set of resources for making life-sustaining treatment decisions. Although we intend to capture all patient decision aids for the seriously ill in our review, we anticipate the possibility that we may miss some decision aids. In addition to publishing our findings in an academic journal, we plan to post our inventory online in an easy-to-read format for public and clinical consumption.