Systematic review of the impact of patient death on surgeons

• Published in: British journal of surgery 2019-10, Vol.106 (11), p.1429-1432
• Main Authors: Joliat, G.‐R., Demartines, N., Uldry, E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Attitude of Health Personnel; Attitude to Death; Humans; Occupational Stress - etiology; Physician-Patient Relations; Surgeons; Surgeons - psychology; Systematic review
• ISSN: 0007-1323; 1365-2168
• DOI: 10.1002/bjs.11264

Background The death of a patient is experienced at some time by most surgeons. The aim of this review was to use existing literature to establish how surgeons have dealt with the death of patients. Methods A systematic review of the medical literature was performed. MEDLINE/PubMed, Ovid, Web of Science, Embase, and Google Scholar were searched for qualitative and quantitative studies on surgeon reactions when facing death or a dying patient. This systematic review was performed following the recommendations of the Cochrane collaboration and reported following the PRISMA guidelines. Individual and interview‐based opinions were summarized and synthesized. Results An initial search found 652 articles. After exclusion of articles that did not satisfy the inclusion criteria, 20 articles remained and seven were included. Two of these articles were personal opinion of the author and five were interviews or surveys. The main findings were that facing death routinely induces a strong psychological burden and that surgeons are more at risk than the general population to develop psychological morbidity. Conclusion Although it is a frequent and emotional subject in the surgical world, the impact of patient death on surgeons is not abundantly studied in the literature. Dealing with patient death or taking care of a dying patient might have long‐lasting psychological impact on surgeons. Antecedentes La mayoría de los cirujanos sufren en algún momento la muerte de un paciente. El objetivo de esta revisión fue analizar la literatura disponible para determinar cómo los cirujanos afrontan la muerte de los pacientes. Métodos Se realizó una revisión sistemática de la literatura médica. Se llevó a cabo una búsqueda en las bases de datos MEDLINE/PubMed, Ovid, Web of Science, Embase y Google Scholar de estudios cualitativos y cuantitativos de las reacciones de los cirujanos cuando se enfrentan con la muerte o frente a un paciente que se está muriendo. Se siguieron las recomendaciones de la colaboración Cochrane para efectuar la revisión y los resultados se presentan de acuerdo con las directrices PRISMA. Se resumieron y sintetizaron las opiniones individuales y las basadas en entrevistas. Resultados En la búsqueda inicial se identificaron 652 artículos. Después de excluir los artículos que no cumplían los criterios de inclusión, la muestra se redujo a 20 artículos, 7 de los cuales fueron finalmente incluidos. De ellos, 2 artículos eran la opinión personal del autor y 5 eran ent