Journal of palliative medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Using Nurse Ratings of Physician Communication in the ICU to Identify Potential Targets for Interventions to Improve End-of-Life Care.
Communication among doctors, nurses, and families contributes to high-quality end-of-life care, but is difficult to improve. ⋯ Several topics of physician-nurse communication, as rated by nurses, were associated with higher nurse-rated quality of dying, whereas one topic, nurses' concerns for patient or family, was associated with poorer ratings. Higher nurse ratings of physician-family communication were uniformly associated with higher quality of dying, highlighting the importance of this communication. Physician support of family decision making was particularly important, suggesting a potential target for interventions to improve end-of-life care.