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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Competence to consent to treatment of geriatric patients
— judgements of physicians, family members and the vignette method | | Author(s) | A Vellinga, J H Smit, E van Leeuwen |
| Journal title | International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 19, no 7, July 2004 |
| Pages | pp 645-654 |
| Source | http://www.interscience.wiley.com |
| Keywords | Medical care ; Rights [elderly] ; Social ethics ; The Family ; General practitioners ; Evaluation ; Netherlands. |
| Annotation | In the absence of a gold standard of methods to assess competence, this Dutch study evaluates three judgements of competency of geriatric patients. Competence of 80 geriatric patients was judged by a physician and a family member. Decision making capacity was assessed with a vignette, which describes a treatment choice, after which the following abilities are evaluated: evidencing a choice; understanding; reasoning; and appreciating a situation. Cognitive functioning was measured with the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE). Most of the geriatric patients were judged to be competent by all three methods. Disagreement between the three judgements was found for 25 patients. Agreement about incompetence was only reached for one patient. A high level of disagreement exists between the judgement of physicians, family members and vignette method, especially about incompetent patients. Physicians appeared to be more lenient, and family members appeared to be most stringent about competency. As the judgement of family members is associated with the vignette method, it can be argued that that method is not only based on legal theory, but echoes daily life experience as well. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-040913219 A |
| Classmark | LK: IKR: TQ: SJ: QT6: 4C: 76H |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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