Moral distress in physicians

Moral distress, initially described as the form of distress that occurs "when one knows the right thing to do, but institutional constraints make it nearly impossible to pursue the right course of action," is highly prevalent among physicians. Contemporary descriptions of moral distress involve three domains including negative attitudes one experiences, one's perceived involvement in a situation, and perceived moral undesirability of the situation. Common sources of moral distress stem from clinical situations and internal and external constraints. Interventions can be targeted at the root causes and components of moral injury and distress, on both individual and organizational levels. These include fostering resiliency in individual clinicians, providing support and moral leadership and ethical culture. This chapter will provide an overview of moral distress in physicians including definitions, common sources and constraints, as well as interventions with specific examples from oncology and the COVID-19 pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Delirium in Critically Ill Cancer Patients With COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 has been a devastating pandemic with little known of its neuropsychiatric complications. Delirium is 1 of the most common neuropsychiatric syndromes among hospitalized cancer patients with incidence ranging from 25% to 40% and rates of up to 85% in the terminally ill. Data on the incidence, risk factors, duration, and outcomes of delirium in critically ill cancer patients with COVID-19 are lacking. OBJECTIVE: To report the incidence, riaks and outcomes of critically ill cancer patients who developed COVID-19. METHODS: This is a retrospective single-center study evaluating delirium frequency and outcomes in all critically ill cancer patients with COVID-19 admitted between March 1 and July 10, 2020. Delirium was assessed by Confusion Assessment Method for Intensive Care Unit, performed twice daily by trained intensive care unit (ICU) nursing staff. Patients were considered to have a delirium-positive day if Confusion Assessment Method for Intensive Care Unit was positive at least once per day. RESULTS: A total of 70 patients were evaluated. Of those 70, 53 (75.7%) were found to be positive for delirium. Patients with delirium were significantly older than patients without delirium (median age 67.5 vs 60.3 y, P = 0.013). There were no significant differences in demographic characteristics, chronic medical conditions, neuropsychiatric history, cancer type, or application of prone positioning between the 2 groups. Delirium patients were less likely to receive cancer-directed therapies (58.5% vs 88.2%, P = 0.038) but more likely to receive antipsychotics (81.1% vs 41.2%, P = 0.004), dexmedetomidine (79.3% vs 11.8%, P < 0.001), steroids (84.9% vs 58.8%, P = 0.039), and vasopressors (90.6% vs 58.8%, P = 0.006). Delirium patients were more likely to be intubated (86.8% vs 41.2%, P < 0.001), and all tracheostomies (35.9%) occurred in patients with delirium. ICU length of stay (19 vs 8 d, P < 0.001) and hospital length of stay (37 vs 12 d, P < 0.001) were significantly longer in delirium patients, but there was no statistically significant difference in hospital mortality (43.4% vs 58.8%, P = 0.403) or ICU mortality (34.0% vs 58.8%, P = 0.090). CONCLUSIONS: Delirium in critically ill cancer patients with COVID-19 was associated with less cancer-directed therapies and increased hospital and ICU length of stay. However, the presence of delirium was not associated with an increase in hospital or ICU mortality.

ADDING CONFUSION TO CHAOS: DELIRIUM IN CRITICALLY ILL CANCER PATIENTS WITH COVID

ICU and hospital lengths of stay were significantly longer in delirium positive patients (p< 0.001), but there was no difference in hospital mortality (p< 0.363). Confusion Assessment Method-Intensive Care Unit (CAM-ICU) was performed at least twice daily and patients screened positive for delirium if CAM-ICU was positive at least once daily. Patients with delirium were significantly older with median age of 67.4 years (61.5-71.5) compared to patients who did not have delirium (p< 0.002). [Extracted from the article] Copyright of Critical Care Medicine is the property of Lippincott Williams & Wilkins and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

COVID-19-Related Ethics Consultations at a Cancer Center in New York City: A Content Review of Ethics Consultations During the Early Stages of the Pandemic.

PURPOSE: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has raised a variety of ethical dilemmas for health care providers. Limited data are available on how a patient's concomitant cancer diagnosis affected ethical concerns raised during the early stages of the pandemic. METHODS: We performed a retrospective review of all COVID-related ethics consultations registered in a prospectively collected ethics database at a tertiary cancer center between March 14, 2020, and April 28, 2020. Primary and secondary ethical issues, as well as important contextual factors, were identified. RESULTS: Twenty-six clinical ethics consultations were performed on 24 patients with cancer (58.3% male; median age, 65.5 years). The most common primary ethical issues were code status (n = 11), obligation to provide nonbeneficial treatment (n = 3), patient autonomy (n = 3), resource allocation (n = 3), and delivery of care wherein the risk to staff might outweigh the potential benefit to the patient (n = 3). An additional nine consultations raised concerns about staff safety in the context of likely nonbeneficial treatment as a secondary issue. Unique contextual issues identified included concerns about public safety for patients requesting discharge against medical advice (n = 3) and difficulties around decision making, especially with regard to code status because of an inability to reach surrogates (n = 3). CONCLUSION: During the early pandemic, the care of patients with cancer and COVID-19 spurred a number of ethics consultations, which were largely focused on code status. Most cases also raised concerns about staff safety in the context of limited benefit to patients, a highly unusual scenario at our institution that may have been triggered by critical supply shortages.