Nicola White, Fiona Reid, Victoria Vickerstaff,
Priscilla Harries, Christopher Tomlinson, Patrick Stone
The results of this study show that even when doctors are very
(>90%) confident that a patient will die within the
next 72 hours, these estimates are only correct on 75%
of occasions. It is therefore important for
clinicians to convey this level of uncertainty in their
communications with patients and relatives. This suggests that while
clinical predictions will continue to have a role for
routine prognostication, other approaches (such as the
use of prognostic scores) may be required for those
cases where doctors’ estimates are indeterminate.
Fulltext available in BMJ Supportive and Palliative Care