Racial, Ethnic, and Socioeconomic Differences in Critical Care Near the End of Life: A Narrative Review.

ABSTRACT

Patients from groups that are racially/ethnically minoritized or of low socioeconomic status receive more intensive care near the end of life, endorse preferences for more life-sustaining treatments, experience lower quality communication from clinicians, and report worse quality of dying than other patients. There are many contributory factors, including system (eg, lack of intensive outpatient symptom management resources), clinician (eg, low-quality serious illness communication), and patient (eg, cultural norms) factors. System and clinician factors contribute to disparities and ought to be remedied, while patient factors simply reflect differences in care and may not be appropriate targets for intervention.