Treatment goals at the end of life

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A geriatrician with both quantitative and qualitative research skills, Dr. Fried is poised to consolidate her career as an independent investigator. The K02, described as a time-off clinical duties award, would permit her to avoid the additional clinical responsibilities she would otherwise be expected to assume as her early career development awards end. Her research program is focused on the elicitation of older persons preferences for different intensities and sites of in care and on the outcomes of these alternative care strategies. It began with projects examining attitudes toward life-sustaining treatment and advance directives, and outcomes of pneumonia in nursing home residents treated with and without hospital transfer. Additional studies have examined the use of and older persons attitudes toward home as a treatment site in acute and terminal illness. Recent work has focused on older persons treatment preferences in serious and terminal illness. Results of this work include reliable and valid new patient-centered measures of treatment preference and the development of a unique cohort of seriously ill older outpatients. Building upon this earlier work, the overall objective of the proposed study is to examine changes in the preferences of both patients and their families across a spectrum of diseases. The primary aim is to determine the effect of primary diagnosis, health status, and healthcare utilization on the preferences of patients and their families. The study will involve 226 terminally ill older persons and a family member. They will be interviewed in their homes every four months if medically stable, and as frequently as every month if the illness is progressing. The relationship of disease diagnosis, health status (functional status, symptoms, self-rated health), healthcare utilization, and understanding of the illness prognosis to preferences will be examined using longitudinal repeated measures analysis. Dr. Fried s research program also consists of additional cohort studies examining communication, symptoms, and function in this study group and intervention studies to enhance physician-patient communication. With colleagues skilled in patient-centered research, extensive data management and analysis support, and senior faculty and administration committed to Dr. Fried s continued success, Yale offers the resources necessary to ensure Dr. Fried s continued development as an independent investigator.