Decision-Making Authority
The majority of the physicians surveyed (65%) believed that, across the
scenarios, decision-making authority regarding lung transplantation
rests with the parents. A minority of physicians (5%) believed that the
child had the ultimate decisional authority in all scenarios. Only 30%
of physicians altered their responses based on age and maturity level.
Half of these physicians felt the patient held decisional authority if
she was older, independent of maturity level. There appeared to be
significant differences across the four scenarios varying age and
maturity level (Cochran’s Q p = 0.008), but there was no significant
difference between any of these individual subgroups with regards to the
effects of either age or maturity level. Nonetheless, the data suggest a
trend towards an effect of age but not maturity level in decisional
authority, which was granted to the parents of a mature and immature
11-year-old by 95% and 90% of physicians respectively, in comparison
to 70% of physicians when the child was 16 years old irrespective of
maturity (Figure 1).