Best interests at end of life: A review of decisions made by the Consent and Capacity Board of Ontario

Purpose

When patients are unable to communicate their own wishes, surrogates are commonly used to aid in decision making. Although each jurisdiction has its own rules or legislation governing how surrogates are to make health care decisions, many rely on the notion of “best interests” when no prior expressed wishes are known.

Methods

We purposively sampled written decisions of the Ontario Consent and Capacity Board that focused on the best interests of patients at the end of life. Interpretive content analysis was performed independently by 2 reviewers, and themes that were identified by consensus as describing best interests were construed, as well as the characteristics of an end-of-life dispute that may be most appropriately handled by an application to the Consent and Capacity Board.

Results

We found that many substitute decision makers rely on an appeal to religion or God in their interpretation of best interests, whereas physicians focused narrowly on the clinical condition of the patient in their interpretations.

Conclusions

Several lessons are drawn for the benefit of health care teams engaged in end-of-life conflicts with substitute decision makers over the best interests of patients.