Open Access

Background End-of-life care is common in German intensive care units (ICUs) but little is known about daily practice. Objectives To study the practice of end-of-life care. Methods Prospectively planned, secondary analysis comprising the German subset of the worldwide Ethicus‑2 Study (2015–2016) including consecutive ICU patients with limitation of life-sustaining therapy or who died. Results Among 1092 (13.7%) of 7966 patients from 11 multidisciplinary ICUs, 967 (88.6%) had treatment limitations, 92 (8.4%) died with failed CPR, and 33 (3%) with brain death. Among patients with treatment limitations, 22.3% (216/967) patients were discharged alive from the ICU. More patients had treatments withdrawn than withheld (556 [57.5%] vs. 411 [42.5%], p < 0.001). Patients with treatment limitations were older (median 73 years [interquartile range (IQR) 61–80] vs. 68 years [IQR 54–77]) and more had mental decision-making capacity (12.9 vs. 0.8%), advance directives (28.6 vs. 11.2%), and information about treatment wishes (82.7 vs 33.3%, all p < 0.001). Physicians reported discussing treatment limitations with patients with mental decision-making capacity and families (91.3 and 82.6%, respectively). Patient wishes were unknown in 41.3% of patients. The major reason for decision-making was unresponsiveness to maximal therapy (34.6%). Conclusions Treatment limitations are common, based on information about patients’ wishes and discussion between stakeholders, patients and families. However, our findings suggest that treatment preferences of nearly half the patients remain unknown which affects guidance for treatment decisions.