Spousal Understanding of Patient Quality of Life: Implications for Surrogate Decisions

[O]ur interest lies in exploring whether surrogate decision makers assess accurately their spouses' quality of life represent accurately preferences regarding the use of life-sustaining treatments. Our in quality of life rests on several considerations relevant to decision making....We hypothesize that a spouse's concordant of a patient's self-report of quality of life corresponds to an of the patient's values and preferences with regard to-sustaining treatment. We assume that quality of life is a major in deliberations over whether a life is worth prolonging when a life-threatening event. If our hypothesis is supported, this some doubt on the need for the clear and convincing evidentiary standard in the