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Memory of Medical Scenarios for End-of-Life Support Preferences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2018

Elvira García-Bajos Open the ORCID record for Elvira García-Bajos [Opens in a new window]  and
Malen Migueles
Elvira García-Bajos*
Affiliation:
Universidad del País Vasco (Spain)
Malen Migueles
Affiliation:
Universidad del País Vasco (Spain)
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Elvira García-Bajos. Facultad de Psicología de la Universidad del País Vasco. Avenida Tolosa 70, San Sebastián, 20018 (Spain). E-mail: elvira.garcia@ehu.es
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Abstract

We studied memory of health scenarios for end-of-life support decisions and stability of life support preferences. Psychology students (n = 36, age M = 27.25, SD = 6.21, 64% females) were administered the Life Support Preferences Questionnaire to assess their memory of six medical scenarios with different prognoses, care treatment, and end-of-life support choices. Recall, recognition, confidence and decision stability were assessed immediately and one month later. Correct recall decreased and incorrect recall increased from immediate to long-term recall, F(2, 68) = 74.38, p < .001, η2p = .69. In recall, participants spontaneously gave false information consistent with prior knowledge of illnesses and medical scenarios. Participants who had suffered a disease or serious accident did worse on correct recall, F(1, 34) = 6.59, p = .015, η2p = .16, and had more errors, F(1, 34) = 4.68, p = .038, η2p = .12, than participants who had not. In the recognition test there were no differences between hits and false alarms, showing the difficulty in discriminating between true and false contents. Confidence was greater for hits than for false alarms, F(1, 34) = 10.86, p = .002, η2p = .24, but this subjective measure did not seem to be a good predictor of accuracy because confidence was greater than the mean value for hits (p = .001, d = 1.74) and for false alarms (p = .001, d = 0.96). Long-term memory was quite poor and biased, but life support preferences did not change much.

Keywords

end-of-lifemedical scenariosmemorynegative eventssupport preferences
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 21 , 2018 , E56
Copyright
Copyright © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2018 

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Footnotes

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de la Economía y la Competitividad (MINECO) under Grant PSI2015-63709-P (MINECO/FEDER, EU) and the Universidad del País Vasco under Grant GIU15/02

How to cite:

García-Bajos, E., & Migueles, M. (2018). Memory of medical scenarios for end-of-life support preferences. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 21. e56. Doi:10.1017/sjp.2018.60

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