Awareness and use of recommendations for withholding and withdrawing therapy in Austrian intensive care units.

During the past decade there has been growing interest in the development of practice guidelines on medical end-of-life decisions. A questionnaire about awareness and use of end-of-life decision guidelines was applied by e-mail in a cross-sectional survey among 1494 attendants of Austrian intensive care medicine conferences held in 2008. Of a total of 246 evaluable responses from physicians, only 140 said to have been aware of national end-of-life decision-making guidelines (56.9%). Those who read the recommendations at least in part believe to have derived benefit from the recommendations. Even though the response rate was low, Austrian intensive care medicine societies should be encouraged to better disseminate end-of-life decision guidelines among caregivers.