Non-beneficial treatments at the end of life

A literature review was recently published in the International Journal for Quality in Health Care, Non-beneficial treatments in hospital at the end of life: a systematic review on extent of the problem. Across the 38 studies from 10 countries (including two from Australia), 33-38% of palliative patients had received non-beneficial treatment, that is a treatment that was given with little or no hope of benefit.

The most commonly reported non-beneficial treatments were admissions to ICU for patients with advanced incurable disease, CPR for terminal patients, and the initiation or continuation of chemotherapy in the last 2-4 weeks of life.  The authors concluded that this problem "has been recognized for at least two decades and it remains today despite much literature about its negative repercussions for patients, families, healthcare professionals and the health system."

M Cardona-Morrell, JCH Kim, RM Turner, M Anstey, IA Mitchell, K Hillman
International Journal for Quality in Health Care. 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/mzw060