RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Development, validation,

Health care providers should discuss cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) preferences with patients who are at risk of requiring CPR, in order to ensure that this inter-vention is in accordance with the patient’s goals of care [1,2]. Nevertheless, such code status discussions occur with varying frequency, even for hospitalized and critically ill patients [3-6]. Discussions regarding resuscitation prefer-ences can be difficult and confusing for patients, surrogates, and providers [7]. While conversations about resuscitation preferences should optimally occur prior to the develop-ment of critical illness, this is often not the case and dis-cussions occur in the context of acute critical illness and emotional distress. In addition, discussions about CPR are often unnecessarily obscured by medical jargon and do not contain the elements suggested by professional soci-eties and bioethicists [8]