A recent medical study indicated that there is a link between religious beliefs and the types of end of life decisions people make.
The BBC reported in Pious ‘fight death the hardest’ that “people with strong religious beliefs appear to want doctors to do everything they can to keep them alive as death approaches.” The study of 345 patients with terminal cancer, conducted by the Dana-Faber Cancer Institute, reportedly found that “those who regularly prayed were more than three times more likely to receive intensive life-prolonging care than those who relied least on religion.” (Thanks to Michael Bonasera of the Ohio Trust and Estate Blog for the link.)
The BBC article further reported that this is despite downsides to intensive medical intervention.
[W]ork has been done which suggests that intensive intervention in the last few weeks and days before death may reduce a patient’s quality of life.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine found that treatments such as ventilator support, resuscitation, having a feeding tube and non-palliative chemotherapy were associated with more psychological and physical distress. The patients’ chances of dying in their preferred place were also reduced.
The Economist, in its report in the study, wrote:
Explaining the unpleasantness and futility of the procedures does not seem to make much difference, either. Holly Prigerson, one of Dr Phelps’s co-authors, was involved in another study at Dana-Farber which was published earlier this month in the Archives of Internal Medicine. This showed that when doctors had frank conversations about the end of life with terminally ill cancer patients, the patients typically chose not to request very intensive medical interventions.
According to Dr Prigerson, though, such end-of-life chats had little impact on “religious copers”, most of whom still wanted doctors to make every effort to keep them alive.
If nothing else, this underscores the importance of having a living will communicating your wishes with regard to end of life treatment. For a more detailed discussion of advance directives and the Terri Schiavo case, see VMM’s Sidebar for Spring 2005.
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