ReviewGerontology & geriatric medicine
End of Life Care and Do Not Resuscitate Orders: How Much Does Age Influence Decision Making? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Review in Gerontology & geriatric medicine. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Views and attitudes of healthcare professionals on do-not-attempt-cardiopulmonary-resuscitation in low-and-lower-middle-income countries: a systematic review.BMC palliative care · 2025Pooled it
- Prediction of cardiac arrest in patients with heart failure in Sweden: a registry study with development of a machine learning model.BMJ open · 2026Observational
- Equal cardiac arrest care - a qualitative study of healthcare professionals' experiences.BMC medical ethics · 2026Article
- Observational
- Where Do Patients With Cirrhosis Die? A CDC WONDER Analysis From 1999 to 2020.JGH open : an open access journal of gastroenterology and hepatology · 2025Article
- Code Status Transitions of Patients with Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage in the Intensive Care Unit.Palliative medicine reports · 2025Article
- Urban people's preferences for life-sustaining treatment or artificial nutrition and hydration in advance decisions.BMC medical ethics · 2024Article
- Exploring adaptive expertise in residency: the (missed) opportunity of uncertainty.Advances in health sciences education : theory and practice · 2024Article
- How age and health status impact attitudes towards aging and technologies in care: a quantitative analysis.BMC geriatrics · 2024Article
- Observational
- Willingness of patients with cancer pain to participate in end-of-life decisions: a multi-center cross-sectional study from three coastal provinces in southern China.BMC palliative care · 2022Article
- Article
- An Ageing Population Creates New Challenges Around Consent to Medical Treatment.Journal of bioethical inquiry · 2021Article
- Can primary palliative care education change life-sustaining treatment intensity of older adults at the end of life? A retrospective study.BMC palliative care · 2021Article
- Ethical considerations at the end-of-life care.SAGE open medicine · 2021Review
- Conceptualizations of clinical decision-making: a scoping review in geriatric emergency medicine.BMC emergency medicine · 2020Article
- First insights on value-based healthcare of elders using ICHOM older person standard set reporting.BMC geriatrics · 2020Article
- Usage of do-not-attempt-to-resuscitate orders in a Swedish community hospital - patient involvement, documentation and compliance.BMC medical ethics · 2020Article
- Characteristics and Outcomes of Patients with Partial Do Not Resuscitate Orders in a Large Community Hospital.Cureus · 2019Article
- A Cross-sectional Study Among Healthcare and Non-healthcare Students in Slovenia and Croatia About Do-not Resuscitate Decision-making.Zdravstveno varstvo · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
With population aging, "do not resuscitate" (DNAR) decisions, pertaining to the appropriateness of attempting resuscitation following a cardiac arrest, are becoming commoner. It is unclear from the literature whether using age to make these decisions represents "ageism." We undertook a systematic review of the literature using CINAHL, Medline, and the Cochrane database to investigate the relationship between age and DNAR. All 10 studies fulfilling our inclusion criteria found that "do not attempt resuscitation" orders were more prevalent in older patients; eight demonstrated that this was independent of other mediating factors such as illness severity and likely outcome. In studies comparing age groups, the adjusted odds of having a DNAR order were greater in patients aged 75 to 84 and ≥85 years (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 1.70, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [1.25, 2.33] and 2.96, 95% CI = [2.34, 3.74], respectively), compared with those <65 years. In studies treating age as a continuous variable, there was no significant increase in the use of DNAR with age (AOR 0.98, 95% CI = [0.84, 1.15]). In conclusion, age increases the use of "do not resuscitate" orders, but more research is needed to determine whether this represents "ageism."
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.