ASSESSING PREFERENCES ABOUT THE DNR ORDER - DOES IT DEPEND ON HOW YOUASK

Despite increasing emphasis on advance directives, there has been litt le methodologic work to assess preferences about the ''do not resuscit ate'' (DNR) order. This developmental work assessed, in a non-patient group, the performance of a probability-trade-of task designed to asse ss DNR attitudes, in terms of framing effects and stability of prefere nces. 105 female nursing students each completed one of two versions o f the task. In version I (n = 58), the trade-off moved to increasingly negative descriptions of the outcomes of resuscitation (decreasing ch ance of survival and increasing risk of brain death), whereas in versi on II (n = 47), the trade-off moved to increasingly positive descripti ons. One week later, repeat assessments were obtained for versions I ( n = 35) and II (n = 28). The DNR preference scores were lower and more stable when the task moved to increasingly positive descriptions; per haps this version of the task tends to weaken risk aversion. These res ults imply that care should be used in applying a probability trade-of f task to the assessment of DNR preferences, since artefactual effects could be induced.