End-of-Life Care in ICUs in East Asia: A Comparison Among China, Korea, and Japan

Objectives: To compare physicians' perceptions and practice of end-of-life care in the ICU in three East Asian countries cultures similarly rooted in Confucianism. Design: A structured and scenario-based survey of physicians who managed ICU patients from May 2012 to December 2012. Setting: ICUs in China, Korea, and Japan. Subjects: Specialists who are either intensivists or nonintensivist primary attending physicians in charge of patients (195 in China, 186 in Korea, 224 in Japan). Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: Country was independently associated with differences in the practice of limiting multiple forms of life-sustaining treatments on multivariable generalized linear model analysis. Chinese respondents were least likely to apply do-not-resuscitate orders, even if they existed (p

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