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Table 2 Judgments about the risk of the treatment not working across participants

From: A mixed methods investigation of end-of-life surrogate decisions among older adults

High risk

“10% chance is still a chance, so you’ve got to take that chance. If you say 90% chance you might be bedbound, well fine we can always get assistance to help you with that. The ultimate thing is, without the treatment, you’re gone, so a 10% chance has to be taken really.”

Medium risk

[speaking about the surrogate decisions] “I think on all the questions I went down to the 50/50, and that would be my final gamble. If it was 50% chance, you might as well take it. Less than 50, I just said no.”

Low risk

“I think, I sort of, more for the physical, I probably gave, slightly… I mean I think it was only 80/90, sorry 80/90% chance you get a full recovery. But otherwise, no. Because I think then you’re getting into the realms that, you know, you’re getting the higher risk chance that you are.”