Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10316/96879
Title: Decision-making Capacity in Healthcare: Instruments Review and Reflections about its Assessment in the Elderly with Cognitive Impairment and Dementia
Authors: Amaral, Ana Saraiva
Afonso, Rosa Marina
Simões, Mário R.
Freitas, Sandra
Keywords: Capacity assessment; Healthcare decision-making; Dementia; Mild cognitive impairment
Issue Date: Jan-2021
Publisher: Springer
Serial title, monograph or event: Psychiatric Quarterly
Abstract: The prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases has been significantly increasing in the last decades, and it is expected to continue to grow. These health disorders can impair patients’ decision-making capacity in healthcare. The capacity to make healthcare deci- sions is a fundamental pillar of informed consent, therefore, it should be carefully assessed. Clinicians’ assessment, when not supported by a standardized tool, has revealed to be unreliable, so the recourse to an instrument of capacity assessment is crucial. The present paper aims to identify and summarize published instruments of healthcare decision-making capacity. To do so, a search of peer-reviewed articles in English, Portuguese and Spanish was conducted. A total of eighteen articles, detailing seventeen assessment instruments were selected. Instruments differ on format, structure, assessed abilities and psychometric properties. Likewise, instruments’ targeted population also varies, with a few being specifically developed for patients with dementia. Although a high number of instruments were found, there is still no gold standard for healthcare decision-making capacity assessment. The lack of a gold standard highlights the need for more research in this field, as well as an effort to develop guidelines and normative data, in order to improve clinical practices.
Description: This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Psychiatric Quarterly. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-020-09867-7
URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10316/96879
ISSN: 0033-2720
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-020-09867-7
Rights: openAccess
Appears in Collections:FPCEUC - Artigos em Revistas Internacionais

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