Evidence · Research paper
Decision-making at the limit of viability: the Austrian neonatal choice context.
- Comfort and nursing care
- Communicating with families
- Delivery room and stabilisation
- Ethics
- Families and professional practice
- Family-integrated care
- Medical
- Nursing
- Palliative and end-of-life care
- Preterm stabilisation
This paper is from 2019, more than five years ago. Newer evidence may have been published since.
Summary
This mixed-methods study combines a literature review with interviews with Austrian heads of neonatology and a clinical ethicist to explore shared decision-making at the limit of viability (22-25 weeks' gestation). It examines how neonatologists communicate options to parents and how this may influence survival and neurodevelopmental outcomes. Key themes include professional bias, parental understanding, framing effects and the self-fulfilling prophecy of institutional statistics. It also highlights how labelling infants by gestational week can skew survival estimates.
Summary written for NICUlearn. Always read the original.
- Licence:
- Open (Creative Commons)
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