Characteristics of Belgian “life-ending acts withoutexplicit patient request”: a large-scale death certificatesurvey revisited

    Onderzoeksoutput: Articlepeer review

    Samenvatting

    Background: "Life-ending acts without explicit patient request," as identified in robust international studies, are central in current debates on physician-assisted dying. Despite their contentiousness, little attention has been paid to their actual characteristics and to what extent they truly represent nonvoluntary termination of life.
    METHODS:
    We analyzed the 66 cases of life-ending acts without explicit patient request identified in a large-scale survey of physicians certifying a representative sample of deaths (n = 6927) in Flanders, Belgium, in 2007. The characteristics we studied included physicians' labelling of the act, treatment course and doses used, and patient involvement in the decision.
    RESULTS:
    In most cases (87.9%), physicians labelled their acts in terms of symptom treatment rather than in terms of ending life. By comparing drug combinations and doses of opioids used, we found that the life-ending acts were similar to intensified pain and symptom treatment and were distinct from euthanasia. In 45 cases, there was at least 1 characteristic inconsistent with the common understanding of the practice: either patients had previously expressed a wish for ending life (16/66, 24.4%), physicians reported that the administered doses had not been higher than necessary to relieve suffering (22/66, 33.3%), or both (7/66, 10.6%).
    INTERPRETATION:
    Most of the cases we studied did not fit the label of "nonvoluntary life-ending" for at least 1 of the following reasons: the drugs were administered with a focus on symptom control; a hastened death was highly unlikely; or the act was taken in accordance with the patient's previously expressed wishes. Thus, we recommend a more nuanced view of life-ending acts without explicit patient request in the debate on physician-assisted dying.
    Originele taal-2English
    Pagina's (van-tot)262-267
    Aantal pagina's6
    TijdschriftCMAJ Open
    Volume2
    DOI's
    StatusPublished - 1 okt 2014

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