Adecuación de las intervenciones clínicas en pacientes con enfermedad avanzada y compleja. Propuesta de algoritmo para la toma de decisiones

Abstract

Decision making in the patient with chronic advanced disease is especially complex. Health professionals are obliged to prevent avoidable suffering and not to add any more damage to that of the disease itself. The adequacy of the clinical interventions consists of only offering those diagnostic and therapeutic procedures appropriate to the clinical situation of the patient and to perform only those allowed by the patient or representative. In this article, the use of an algorithm is proposed that should serve to help health professionals in this decision making process.