ReviewBJA open2025
Factors influencing multidisciplinary clinical decision-making in the critical care unit: a systematic review and mixed-methods meta-synthesis.
Review in BJA open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 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
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Food for thought: a mixed methods analysis of nutrition decision making during bedside rounds in the neonatal intensive care unit.Pediatric research · 2026Article
- Contextualising ventilation decisions: an ethnographic study of factors shaping interprofessional decision-making.BMC nursing · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: The intensive care unit (ICU) is a dynamic environment that necessitates daily clinical decisions regarding organ support treatments. The decision-making process varies significantly between clinicians (i.e. doctors, nurses, and allied healthcare practitioners), even where internationally accepted treatment guidance exists. The factors and the processes influencing clinical decision-making are poorly understood. This systematic review aims to generate a decision-making model by evaluating current evidence on the decision-making process and the factors that affect decisions on organ support treatments in the ICU. Methods: We conducted a systematic search on three databases (PubMed, Embase, and CINAHL) including all papers exploring factors that influenced organ support decisions (PROSPERO: CRD42021283290). A mixed-methods meta-synthesis was performed to enable the generation of distinct themes and subthemes used to generate the decision-making model. Results: After screening 8967 records, 33 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. The mixed-method interpretation of the data found that decision-making can be linear and primarily dictated by patient factors (i.e. patient's clinical parameters). However, the analysis identified 11 factors that can influence and strain clinician's decision-making. Four themes: 1) human, 2) team, 3) system, and 4) patient emerged as the potential modifiable factors to optimise the decision-making process. Conclusions: Decision-making surrounding organ support treatment is complex and dynamic. However, there are four distinctive potentially modifiable themes that influence the multidisciplinary decision-making process. Further studies should focus on understanding interventions to improve decision-making and if different decision-making processes directly affect patients' outcomes. Systematic review protocol: PROSPERO (CRD42021283290).
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.