Surrogate prediction of quality-of-life and desire for treatment: a guess of a guess

In conditions, such as dementia, stroke, or critical illness, clinicians often rely on substituted judgment through a surrogate to assist in medical decision making. Surrogates may face tough decisions regarding whether to pursue or forego surgery, tube feeding, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Surrogates often have little confidence in their decision (Majesko et al., 2012), though substituted judgment relies on the surrogate to determine the decision that the patient would have made. Prior studies suggest that surrogates predict patient preferences with only 68% accuracy (Shalowitz et al., 2006). This month's study by Bravo and colleagues (Bravo et al., 2017) explores differences in quality-of-life assessments between patients and surrogates as a potential explanation for surrogate inaccuracy.