title: To resuscitate or not to resuscitate: a logistic regression analysis of physician-related variables influencing the decision.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine whether variables in physicians' backgrounds influenced their decision to forego resuscitating a patient they did not previously know.
  
  
  METHODS
  Questionnaire survey of a convenience sample of 204 physicians working in the departments of internal medicine, anaesthesiology and cardiology in 11 hospitals in Israel.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Twenty per cent of the participants had elected to forego resuscitating a patient they did not previously know without additional consultation. Physicians who had more frequently elected to forego resuscitation had practised medicine for more than 5 years (p=0.013), estimated the number of resuscitations they had performed as being higher (p=0.009), and perceived their experience in resuscitation as sufficient (p=0.001). The variable that predicted the outcome of always performing resuscitation in the logistic regression model was less than 5 years of experience in medicine (OR 0.227, 95% CI 0.065 to 0.793; p=0.02).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Physicians' level of experience may affect the probability of a patient's receiving resuscitation, whereas the physicians' personal beliefs and values did not seem to affect this outcome.
authors: Department of Emergency Medicine and Intensive Care Unit, Shaare Zedek Medical Centre, Hebrew University School of Medicine, Jerusalem, Israel. einav_s@szmc.org.il
authors: Sharon
authors: S
authors: Einav
authors: Gady
authors: G
authors: Alon
authors: Nechama
authors: N
authors: Kaufman
authors: Rony
authors: R
authors: Braunstein
authors: Sara
authors: S
authors: Carmel
authors: Joseph
authors: J
authors: Varon
authors: Moshe
authors: M
authors: Hersch
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D016414:Resuscitation Orders / Q000523:psychology*; D057566:Self Report