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Article: Physicians Overestimate Life Span Of Terminally Ill Patients.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Family Practice News
- Article date:
- April 15, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 International Medical News Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Physicians tend to be overly optimistic when estimating how long a terminally ill patient will survive, reported Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis and Dr. Elizabeth B. Lamont of the University of Chicago Medical Center.
In a prospective study of 468 terminally ill patients and their 343 physicians, the physicians overestimated survival by an average factor of 5.3-fold. Their predictions were too optimistic in 63% of the cases, too pessimistic in 17%, and accurate (between 0.67 and 1.33 times the actual survival) in 20%, the investigators said (BMJ 320[7233]:469-73, 2000).
Prognostic inaccuracy was common among all of the medical specialties in the study, ...