Trial reportBMC medical ethics2019
Effect of written outcome information on attitude of perinatal healthcare professionals at the limit of viability: a randomized study.
Trial report in BMC medical ethics, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Decision-Making at the Limit of Viability in Newborns: Insights from a Survey of Medical Professionals.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Ethical challenges and moral conflicts in periviability prenatal counseling: a scoping review of healthcare professionals' perspectives.BMC medical ethics · 2026Article
- Ethical and management dilemmas in the care of the newborn at the limit of viability: a narrative review.Journal of medicine and life · 2026Review
- Infant Viability in Severe Preeclampsia: Management Strategies and the Potential Role of Calprotectin-A Narrative Review.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Withdrawal and withholding of life sustaining treatment (WWLST): an under recognised factor in the morbidity or mortality of periviable infants?-a narrative review.Translational pediatrics · 2024Review
- The Ethics and Practice of Periviability Care.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Ethical Dilemmas in Neonatal Care at the Limit of Viability.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Something must happen before first breath.BMC medical ethics · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDifferences in perception and potential disagreements between parents and professionals regarding the attitude for resuscitation at the limit of viability are common. This study evaluated in healthcare professionals whether the decision to resuscitate at the limit of viability (intensive care versus comfort care) are influenced by the way information on incurred risks is given or received.
methodsThis is a prospective randomized controlled study. This study evaluated the attitude of healthcare professionals by testing the effect of information given through graphic fact sheets formulated either optimistically or pessimistically. The written educational fact sheet included three graphical presentations of survival and complication/morbidity by gestational age. The questionnaire was submitted over a period of 4 months to 5 and 6-year medical students from the Geneva University as well as physicians and nurses of the neonatal unit at the University Hospitals of Geneva. Our sample included 102 healthcare professionals.
resultsForty-nine responders (48%) were students (response rate of 33.1%), 32 (31%) paediatricians (response rate of 91.4%) and 21 (20%) nurses in NICU (response rate of 50%). The received risk tended to be more severe in both groups compared to the graphically presented facts and current guidelines, although optimistic representation favoured the perception of "survival without disability" at 23 to 25 weeks. Therapeutic attitudes did not differ between groups, but healthcare professionals with children were more restrained and students more aggressive at very low gestational ages.
conclusionWritten information on mortality and morbidity given to healthcare professionals in graphic form encourages them to overestimate the risk. However, perception in healthcare staff may not be directly transferable to parental perception during counselling as the later are usually naïve to the data received. This parental information are always communicated in ways that subtly shape the decisions that follow.
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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.