TY - JOUR T1 - TIme to revise the approach to determining cardiopulmonary resuscitation status AU - Blinderman CD AU - Krakauer EL AU - Solomon MZ Y1 - 2012/03/07 N1 - 10.1001/jama.2012.236 JO - JAMA SP - 917 EP - 918 VL - 307 IS - 9 N2 - Whenever there is a plausible risk of cardiac arrest, the standard approach is to ask patients or their surrogates about their preferences regarding CPR. However, the very act of asking can suggest to the patient and family that CPR may be beneficial, even when the clinician believes otherwise. Additionally, research in cognitive psychology has revealed that default options are often interpreted as recommendations or guidelines, or as the path of least resistance, and that such default options significantly affect decision making.1 For these reasons, patients or their surrogates may be biased toward choosing full resuscitation status, even when CPR likely would bring little or no benefit and would risk considerable harm. Therefore, the standard approach of neutrally seeking consent to withhold CPR may inadvertently diminish patients' and families' comprehension of the clinical situation and lead to decisions that are grounded neither in patients' values2 nor in their best interest. SN - 0098-7484 M3 - doi: 10.1001/jama.2012.236 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2012.236 ER -