RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Reasons doctors provide futile treatment at the end of life: a qualitative study JF Journal of Medical Ethics JO J Med Ethics FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Institute of Medical Ethics SP 496 OP 503 DO 10.1136/medethics-2016-103370 VO 42 IS 8 A1 Lindy Willmott A1 Benjamin White A1 Cindy Gallois A1 Malcolm Parker A1 Nicholas Graves A1 Sarah Winch A1 Leonie Kaye Callaway A1 Nicole Shepherd A1 Eliana Close YR 2016 UL http://jme.bmj.com/content/42/8/496.abstract AB Objective Futile treatment, which by definition cannot benefit a patient, is undesirable. This research investigated why doctors believe that treatment that they consider to be futile is sometimes provided at the end of a patient's life.Design Semistructured in-depth interviews.Setting Three large tertiary public hospitals in Brisbane, Australia.Participants 96 doctors from emergency, intensive care, palliative care, oncology, renal medicine, internal medicine, respiratory medicine, surgery, cardiology, geriatric medicine and medical administration departments. Participants were recruited using purposive maximum variation sampling.Results Doctors attributed the provision of futile treatment to a wide range of inter-related factors. One was the characteristics of treating doctors, including their orientation towards curative treatment, discomfort or inexperience with death and dying, concerns about legal risk and poor communication skills. Second, the attributes of the patient and family, including their requests or demands for further treatment, prognostic uncertainty and lack of information about patient wishes. Third, there were hospital factors including a high degree of specialisation, the availability of routine tests and interventions, and organisational barriers to diverting a patient from a curative to a palliative pathway. Doctors nominated family or patient request and doctors being locked into a curative role as the main reasons for futile care.Conclusions Doctors believe that a range of factors contribute to the provision of futile treatment. A combination of strategies is necessary to reduce futile treatment, including better training for doctors who treat patients at the end of life, educating the community about the limits of medicine and the need to plan for death and dying, and structural reform at the hospital level.