death with dignity

BACKGROUND: Accompanying a person at their death is a common experience in nurse education. In addition to all death experiences that are a meaningful part of the nursing profession, the first death experience is very important. However, there is limited understanding of nursing students' first death experiences. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to explore nursing students' experiences of the death of a person for the first time during clinical practice. DESIGN: This study was conducted as a qualitative study using a phenomenological design...

BACKGROUND: The end of life and death have changed from being issues managed within the family, assumed as part of life, to occur within health institutions for the majority of patients. The amount of patients dying at home has decreased, and the roles of families and communities in death and dying have become involuted, threatening related traditions and knowledge. As a result, a need to promote the end of life at home in this new self-serving society has arisen. In that context, the main objective of this study was to find out what patients and their families need during the end-of-life process in order to feel effectively accompanied at this time...

Hospice care is to improve the quality of life and help patients die comfortably, peacefully and dignified by controlling pain and discomfort symptoms and providing physical, psychological and spiritual care and humanistic care in the final stage of the patient's life. Hospice care clients were primarily cancer patients at first and then slowly extended to other critically patients. Hospice care can alleviate the physical, psychosocial and mental problems of patients with advanced cancer, meet the diversified and multi-level health service needs of patients, improve the quality of life of patients and their families, and also save medical expenditure and improve the efficiency of medical resources...

Whether death occurs in the context of a chronic illness or as the sudden loss of a previously healthy infant, child, or adolescent, the death of a child is a highly stressful and traumatic event. Psychosocial support for families after the death of a child embodies core medical values of professional fidelity, compassion, respect for human dignity, and promotion of the best interests of a grieving family. The pediatrician has an important role in supporting the family unit after the death of a child through a family-centered, culturally humble, trauma-informed approach...

INTRODUCTION: Using a plan to limit non-beneficial life support interventions has significantly reduced harm and loss of dignity for patients at the end of life. The association of these limitations with patients' clinical characteristics and health care costs in the intensive care unit (ICU) needs further scientific evidence. AIM OF THE STUDY: To explore decisions to limit non-beneficial life support interventions, their correlation with patients' clinical data, and their effect on the cost of care in the ICU...

Intervention in Palliative Care aims to provide physical, psychosocial, and spiritual relief for patients and family members. Brief interventions with a psycho-existential approach have shown positive responses; however, cultural adaptations are needed. This pilot study aimed to develop the Meaning of Life Therapy (MLT), a novel psycho-existential intervention, rooted in the Dignity Therapy, Life Review, and Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy. MLT was culturally adapted to the Portuguese context to include questions about forgiveness, apology, reconciliation, farewell, and a legacy document, i...

The article is about ethics and bioethics with a focus on the health worker and health work in the context of the pandemic of COVID-19 in Brazil. It brings in an unprecedented debate on social and economic inequalities, evidenced in the world, regarding access to vaccines, medicines, tests, PPE, among others, which brought suffering and death. The dispute for these products occurred on a global scale and producing countries closed their markets and commercial dependence led to dramatic situations. During the pandemic, several ethical issues were evidenced: conflicts, dilemmas, and ethical infractions occurred in different situations, such as in health care settings, in the relationship between managers and health care workers, within health care teams, and between health care teams and society...

The increased prevalence of advanced-stage chronic diseases has augmented the need for palliative care teams. In Colombia, although the legislation promotes palliative care development, people still die without receiving management from a palliative care team. In addition, judiciary regulations regarding euthanasia have generated public confusion and ethical conflicts among members of the palliative care teams. Therefore, this study aimed to perform a bioethical reflection on the relationship between palliative care and euthanasia supported by data on euthanasia requests in a palliative care program...

Background: How people face mortality is a crucial matter for medicine. Yet, there is not a coherent and comprehensive understanding of how people can process the experience such that it is not traumatic. Methods: This article offers a "logic model" of how existential maturation occurs, using analogies from cell biology to explain the process. Results: This model depicts 10 mechanisms that together deal with mortality-salient events. Collectively, they are termed the existential function, which is seen as an innate, ever-evolving, integral part of the mind...

OBJECTIVES: Assisted dying has been legally available in Oregon in the USA for 25 years, since when official reports have been published each year detailing the number of people who have used this option as well as sociodemographic and information about the process. The aim of this study was to examine changes over time in these data. METHODS: We collated and reviewed data on 2454 assisted deaths included in annual reports on assisted deaths published by the Oregon Health Authority from 1998 to 2022...

PURPOSE: For the dignity of patients nearing the end of their lives, it is essential to provide end-of-life (EoL) care in a separate, dedicated space. This study investigated the utilization of specialized rooms for dying patients within a hospice unit. METHODS: This retrospective study examined patients who died in a single hospice unit between January 1, 2017, and December 31, 2021. Utilizing medical records, we analyzed the circumstances surrounding death, the employment of specialized rooms for terminally ill patients, and the characteristics of those who received EoL care in a shared room...

OBJECTIVES: Neuroticism is a significant predictor of adverse psychological outcomes in patients with cancer. Less is known about how this relationship manifests in those with noncancer illness at the end-of-life (EOL). The objective of this study was to examine the impact of neuroticism as a moderator of physical symptoms and development of depression in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), end-stage renal disease (ESRD), and frailty in the last 6 months of life...

A dignified death is described as a good death or dying with dignity. Nurses caring for veterans are aware of the honor veterans can receive at the time of death. The purpose of this study was to describe and compare perceptions of a dignified death in nurses who care for veterans in Veterans Affairs settings. This descriptive, exploratory design used an online survey including scales of dying with dignity and a good death. Subjects were nurses who worked at Veterans Affairs facilities. Dying with dignity scores were high and moderately high for a good death...

BACKGROUND: According to § 27 and § 87 1b of the German Social Code, Book V, general outpatient palliative care (GOPC) aims to promote, maintain, and improve the quality of life and self-determination of seriously ill people. It should enable them to live in dignity until death in their preferred environment. Instead of a curative approach GOPC treatment focuses on the multiprofessional objective of alleviating symptoms and suffering on a case-by-case basis using medication or other measures, as well as the management of an individual treatment plan...

Medical technology has made tremendous strides in extending the lives of patients who have suffered organ failure. Machines can now replace the function of the kidneys, the heart, and other vital organs. Much has been written about a patient's right to refuse or direct the withdrawal of medical treatment, especially at the end of life, under the guise of "death with dignity." However, little attention has been paid to the situation where a patient elects to deactivate their life-sustaining medical device without a physician's involvement...

OBJECTIVE: To explore the health care experiences of women from the Irish Traveller community, which is an indigenous ethnic minority group in Ireland and Great Britain. DESIGN: A descriptive qualitative methodology underpinned by naturalistic inquiry was adopted. SETTING: Halting sites where the participating Traveller women permanently reside. PARTICIPANTS: The sample consisted of 24 women from the Traveller community in Ireland...

Emphasizing scientific and cultural-historical aspects of human remains, we describe the historical background and present status of the Anatomical Collection at the University of Jena. In addition to safekeeping issues and exhibition practice, we provide typical examples of provenance research in the Collection and refer to relevant literature and recommendations. A reappraisal of the Anatomical Collection culminated in the implementation of a new exhibition concept that diverts attention away from dead bodies as mere anatomical objects and emphasizes ethical considerations, such as consented body donation...

Family medicine physicians take care of patients and their families "from womb to tomb." This phrase is particularly apt in Oregon, where the Death with Dignity Act allows for terminally ill patients to end their lives with self-administered medications prescribed by a physician. This story chronicles my first experience caring for a patient under the Death with Dignity Act; that night of her death at home, surrounded by the warmth of her life and loved ones, opened my mind to the possibilities of what the patient-physician relationship entails, from the routine of meeting her family to the intimacy of assisting in her decision to die...

BACKGROUND: The Chochinov Dignity Model was developed based on a cohort of adult patients with advanced cancer, but its role among dying children is not clear. This study aims to develop a model of dignity for children receiving pediatric palliative care based on the Chochinov Dignity Model. METHODS: This is a descriptive qualitative study. Participants included a total of 11 parents and 14 healthcare providers who were recruited from a tertiary children's hospital in Beijing and the Pediatric Palliative Care Subspecialty Group of the Pediatrics Society of the Chinese Medical Association using purposive sampling...

BACKGROUND: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a progressive and lethal neurodegenerative disease that is at the forefront of debates on regulation of assisted dying. Since 2002, when euthanasia was legally regulated in the Netherlands, the frequency of this end-of-life practice has increased substantially from 1·7% of all deaths in 1990 and 2005 to 4·5% in 2015. We aimed to investigate whether the frequency of euthanasia in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis had similarly increased since 2002, and to assess the factors associated with end-of-life practices and the quality of end-of-life care in patients with this disease...