[Relevance of Living Wills During Post-Resuscitation Care].

Background  There is hardly any evidence about the influence of living wills on acute life-threatening disease like out-of-hospital cardiac-arrest (OHCA). We therefore initiated this study to quantify the percentage of victims of OHCA who's living wills are available during post-resuscitation care. Methods  All victims of OHCA who were admitted to our hospital between January 1 ^st 2008 and July 31 ^th 2016 were identified by analysis of our central admission register. Data from individual patients were collected from the patient's health records and anonymously stored on a central database. Results  Altogether, there were 343 victims of OHCA admitted to our hospital between January 1 ^st 2008 and July 31 ^th 2016, including 16 patients (4.7 %) with living wills and 18 patients (5.2 %) with legal health care proxy. Survival rates were 31.2 % in patients with living wills, 27.8 % in patients with legal health care proxy and 33.3 % in patients without such a document. Conclusion  In this study, the percentage of victims of OHCA with available living wills during post-resuscitation care was low. The presentation of living wills or legal health care proxies during post-resuscitation care of victims from OHCA was not equivalent to the patient`s death. Most often, discussion with relatives led to the decision to withdraw further therapy.
Competing Interests: Disclosure The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.
(© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.)