Main Outcomes and Measures
The primary outcome was physician attitude regarding pediatric decision-making authority as influenced by patient age and maturity level. The hypothesis formulated prior to data collection was that the majority of physicians believed parents held decision-making authority surrounding transplantation, but that this would be inversely related to patient age and maturity. Secondary outcomes included physician views on attempting reconciliation of parent-child conflicts of opinions regarding the pursuit of lung transplantation, provider initiative to determine the opinion of the pediatric patient, and views towards utilizing ethics and psychiatry consultation services to reconcile conflicting opinions.