Figure 1.
Consort diagram.
Table 1.
Characteristics of Patients that died on the intensive care unit between August 2008 and September 2010.
Figure 2.
Practicing the end-of-life decision.
Relative frequencies in percentage of continuing, withholding, or withdrawing of life sustaining treatment or the lack of documentation for the procedure regarding this entity in the end-of-life decision. Data are shown for the first withhold/withdraw life support order during the patientś stay on the intensive care unit.
Figure 3.
End-of-life decision makers for withhold and/or withdraw life support orders.
Relative frequencies [%] of documented health care professionals and family members or patientś surrogate decision makers in the end-of-life decision process. *1 = the director of the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine or her substitutes; *2 = the surgeon respective the physician primarily responsible for the underlying admission diagnosis; *3 = including the patient´s surrogate decision maker; Before*4 = period before 09/01/2009 with change of legislation; After*5 = period after 09/01/2009 with change of legislation.
Table 2.
Patientś advance directives and the new law.