Caregivers attitudes for very premature infants: what if they knew?

BACKGROUND: Decisions about resuscitation of extremely premature babies are controversial. Such decisions may reflect poor understanding of outcomes. OBJECTIVE: To compare caregivers' attitudes towards the resuscitation of a premature infant if they are only told the infant's gestational age or if they are only given prognostic information for infants at that gestational age. DESIGN/METHODS: Residents and nurses involved in perinatal care were asked whether they would resuscitate a depressed AGA 24-week gestation infant at birth. In another question they were asked whether they would resuscitate a depressed preterm infant with a 50% chance of survival, knowing that of those who survived, 50% would have a development 'within normal limits', 20-25% a serious handicap and 40% with behavioural and/or learning disability. RESULTS: Two hundred and seventy-nine caregivers responded (91% response rate). In the scenario that only presented gestational age, 21% of respondents would resuscitate. In the scenario that only presented prognostic statistics, 51% of respondents would resuscitate (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Providers of perinatal health care respond to vignettes differently depending upon the format in which information is provided. The relative unwillingness to resuscitate a baby of 24-week gestation is surprising since outcomes for such babies are the same or better than those we described in the scenario that provided only outcome data without specifying gestational age. Two explanations are possible: (1) respondents have irrational negative associations with low gestational ages or (2) respondents are unaware of actual outcomes.