Racial and ethnic differences in the treatment of seriously ill patients: A comparison of African-American, Caucasian and Hispanic Veterans

Journal of the National Medical Association

Volumn 100, Issue 9, 2008, Pages 1041-1051

  Braun, Ursula K ^a,b   McCullough, Laurence B ^e   Beyth, Rebecca J ^g,h   Wray, Nelda P ⁱ   Kunik, Mark E ^c,f   Morgan, Robert O ^a,d  

^a MICHAEL E DEBAKEY VETERANS AFFAIRS MEDICAL CENTER   (United States)

^b Department of Medicine ^*  (United States)

^c Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences   (United States)

^d BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE   (United States)

^e Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy   (United States)

^f EDUCATION AND CLINICAL CENTER   (United States)

^g NF/SGVHS   (United States)

^h UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA COLLEGE OF MEDICINE   (United States)

ⁱ University of Alabama at Birmingham   (United States)

Author keywords

Intensive care; Race ethnicity

Indexed keywords

ADULT; AFRICAN AMERICAN; AGED; ARTICLE; ARTIFICIAL VENTILATION; BLOOD TRANSFUSION; CAUCASIAN; CRITICALLY ILL PATIENT; DEMENTIA; DISEASE SEVERITY; ETHNIC DIFFERENCE; FEMALE; HISPANIC; HUMAN; MAJOR CLINICAL STUDY; MALE; MORTALITY; NEOPLASM; PRIORITY JOURNAL; RACE DIFFERENCE; RESUSCITATION; TERMINAL CARE; VETERAN;

EID: 52449097499     PISSN: 00279684     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0027-9684(15)31442-5     Document Type: Article

References (54)

1. Anonymous. Older Americans 2004 - Key indicators of well-being. In: Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics, ed. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2004.
2. Committee on Care at the End of Life, Institute of Medicine. Approaching death: Improving care at the end-of-life. Washington, DC: National Academy Press; 1997.
3. Morrison RS, Siu AL, Leipzig RM, et al. The hard task of improving the quality of care at the end of life. Arch Intern Med. 2000;160(6):743-747.
4. Crawley L, Payne R, Bolden J, et al. Palliative and end-of-life care in the African American community. JAMA. 2000;284(19):2518-2521.
5. Crawley LM, Marshall P, Koenig B. Respecting cultural differences at the end of life. In: Snyder L, Quill TE, eds. Physician's guide to end-of-life care. Philadelphia, PA: American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine; 2001:35-55.
6. Krakauer EL, Crenner C, Fox K. Barriers to optimum end-of-life care for minority patients. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2002;50(1):182-190.
7. Kwak J, Haley WE. Current research findings on end-of-life decision making among racially or ethnically diverse groups. Gerontologist. 2005;45(5):634-641.
8. Payne R. Palliative care for African Americans and other vulnerable populations: access and quality issues. In: Foley KM, Gelband H, eds. Improving Palliative Care for Cancer. Washington, DC: National Academy Press; 2001.
9. Smedley BD, Stith AY, Nelson AR. Unequal treatment: confronting racial and ethnic disparities in health care. Committee on Understanding and Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care, Board on Health Sciences Policy, and Institute of Medicine. In: Anonymous. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2003.
10. Allison JJ, Kiefe CI, Centor RM, et al. Racial differences in the medical treatment of elderly Medicare patients with acute myocardial infarction. J Gen Intern Med. 1996;11(12):736-743.
11. Escarce JJ, Epstein KR, Colby DC, et al. Racial differences in the elderly's use of medical procedures and diagnostic tests. Am J Public Health. 1993;83(7):948-954.
12. Peterson ED, Shaw LK, DeLong ER, et al. Racial variation in the use of coronary-revascularization procedures. Are the differences real? Do they matter? N Engl J Med. 1997;336(7):480-486.
13. Young CJ, Gaston RS. African Americans and renal transplantation: disproportionate need, limited access, and impaired outcomes. Am J Med Sci. 2002;323(2):94-99.
14. Marik PE, Zaloga GP. CPR in terminally ill patients? Resuscitation. 2001;49(1):99-103.
15. Finucane TE, Christmas C, Travis K. Tube feeding in patients with advanced dementia: a review of the evidence. JAMA. 1999;282(14):1365- 1370.
16. Finucane TE, Christmas C. More caution about tube feeding. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2000;48(9):1167-1168.
17. Braun UK, Rabeneck L, McCullough LB, et al. Decreasing use of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube feeding for veterans with dementia-racial differences remain. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2005;53(2):242-248.
18. Gessert CE, Mosier MC, Brown EF, et al. Tube feeding in nursing home residents with severe and irreversible cognitive impairment. J Am Geriatr Soc 2000;48(12):1593-1600.
19. Gessert CE, Curry NM, Robinson A. Ethnicity and end-of-life care: the use of feeding tubes. Ethn Dis. 2001;11(1):97-106.
20. Grant MD, Rudberg MA, Brody JA. Gastrostomy placement and mortality among hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries. JAMA. 1998;279(24):1973-1976.
21. Rabeneck L, Wray NP, Petersen NJ. Long-term outcomes of patients receiving percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tubes. J Gen Intern Med. 1996;11(5):287-293.
22. Diringer MN, Edwards DF, Aiyagari V, et al. Factors associated with withdrawal of mechanical ventilation in a neurology/neurosurgery intensive care unit. Crit Care Med. 2001;29(9):1792-1797.
23. Goodlin SJ, Zhong Z, Lynn J, et al. Factors associated with use of cardiopulmonary resuscitation in seriously ill hospitalized adults. JAMA 1999;282(24):2333-2339.
24. Phillips RS, Hamel MB, Teno JM, et al. Patient race and decisions to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatments for seriously ill hospitalized adults. SUPPORT Investigators. Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatments. Am J Med. 2000;108(1):14-19.
25. Borum ML, Lynn J, Zhong Z. The effects of patient race on outcomes in seriously ill patients in SUPPORT: an overview of economic impact, medical intervention, and end-of-life decisions. Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatments. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2000;48(5 Suppl):S194-S198.
26. Phillips RS, Hamel MB, Teno JM, et al. Race, resource use, and survival in seriously ill hospitalized adults. The SUPPORT Investigators. J Gen Intern Med. 1996;11(7):387-396.
27. Lynn J, Harrell F Jr, Cohn F, et al. Prognoses of seriously ill hospitalized patients on the days before death: implications for patient care and public policy. New Horiz. 1997;5(1):56-61.
28. Bach PB, Schrag D, Begg CB. Resurrecting treatment histories of dead patients: a study design that should be laid to rest. JAMA. 2004;292(22):2765-2770.
29. Knaus WA, Harrell FE, Jr., Lynn J, et al. The SUPPORT prognostic model. Objective estimates of survival for seriously ill hospitalized adults. Study to understand prognoses and preferences for outcomes and risks of treatments. Ann Intern Med. 1995;122(3):191-203.
30. Anonymous. ICD-9-CM. International Classification of Diseases, 9th revision, Clinical Modification. 3d ed, volumes 1, 2 and 3. Official authorized addendum effective October 1, 1990 - HCFA. J Am Med Rec Assoc. 1990;61(8):suppl-35.
31. Fisher SG, Weber L, Goldberg J, et al. Mortality ascertainment in the veteran population: alternatives to the National Death Index. Am J Epidemiol. 1995;141(3):242-250.
32. Au DH, Udris EM, Finn SD, et al. Differences in health care utilization at the end of life among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and patients with lung cancer. Arch Intern Med. 2006;166(3):326-331.
33. Somogyi-Zalud E, Zhong Z, Hamel MB, et al. The use of life-sustaining treatments in hospitalized persons aged 80 and older. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2002;50(5):930-934.
34. Borum ML, Lynn J, Zhong Z. Blood transfusion administration in seriously ill patients: an evaluation of SUPPORT data. Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatments. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2000;48(5 suppl):S39-S43.
35. Deyo RA, Cherkin DC, Ciol MA. Adapting a clinical comorbidity index for use with ICD-9-CM administrative databases. J Clin Epidemiol. 1992;45(6):613-619.
36. Schneeweiss S, Wang PS, Avorn J, et al. Consistency of Performance Ranking of Comorbidity Adjustment Scores in Canadian and U.S. Utilization Data. J Gen Int Med. 2004;19:444-450.
37. Shepardson LB, Gordon HS, Ibrahim SA, et al. Racial variation in the use of do-not-resuscitate orders. J Gen Intern Med. 1999;14(1):15-20.
38. Blackhall LJ, Frank G, Murphy ST, et al. Ethnicity and attitudes towards life sustaining technology. Soc Sci Med. 1999;48(12):1779-1789.
39. Caralis PV, Davis B, Wright K, et al. The influence of ethnicity and race on attitudes toward advance directives, life-prolonging treatments, and euthanasia. J Clin Ethics. 1993;4(2):155-165.
40. Garrett JM, Harris RP, Norburn JK, et al. Life-sustaining treatments during terminal illness: who wants what? J Gen Intern Med. 1993;8(7):361-368.
41. McKinley ED, Garrett JM, Evans AT, et al. Differences in end-of-life decision making among black and white ambulatory cancer patients. J Gen Intern Med. 1996;11(11):651-656.
42. Callahan CM, Haag KM, Weinberger M, et al. Outcomes of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy among older adults in a community setting. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2000;48(9):1048-1054.
43. Mitchell SL, Kiely DK, Lipsitz LA. Does artificial enteral nutrition prolong the survival of institutionalized elders with chewing and swallowing problems? J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 1998;53(3):M207-M213.
44. Mitchell SL, Tetroe JM. Survival after percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy placement in older persons. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2000;55(12): M735-M739.
45. Rabeneck L, McCullough LB, Wray NP. Ethically justified, clinically comprehensive guidelines for percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube placement. Lancet. 1997;349(9050):496-498.
46. Phipps E, True G, Harris D, et al. Approaching the end of life: attitudes, preferences, and behaviors of African-American and white patients and their family caregivers. J Clin Oncol. 2003;21(3):549-554.
47. Degenholtz HB, Thomas SB, Miller MJ. Race and the intensive care unit: disparities and preferences for end-of-life care. Crit Care Med. 2003;31(5 suppl):S373-S378.
48. Degenholtz HB, Arnold RA, Meisel A, et al. Persistence of racial disparities in advance care plan documents among nursing home residents. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2002;50(2):378-381.
49. Hopp FP, Duffy SA. Racial variations in end-of-life care. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2000;48(6):658-663.
50. Teno JM, Licks S, Lynn J, et al. Do advance directives provide instructions that direct care? SUPPORT Investigators. Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatment. J Am Geriatr Soc. 1997;45(4):508-512.
51. Cooper LA, Roter DL, Johnson RL, et al. Patient-centered communication, ratings of care, and concordance of patient and physician race. Ann Intern Med. 2003;139(11):907-915.
52. Johnson RL, Roter D, Powe NR, et al. Patient race/ethnicity and quality of patient-physician communication during medical visits. Am J Public Health. 2004;94(12):2084-2090.
53. Boulware LE, Cooper LA, Ratner LE, et al. Race and trust in the health care system. Public Health Rep. 2003;118(4):358-365.
54. Kashner TM. Agreement between administrative files and written medical records: a case of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Med Care. 1998;36(9):1324-1336.