Aid-in-Dying

This study evaluated whether psychache (i.e., mental pain) mediates the association between general distress, assessed as the frequency and the intensity of psychological symptoms in the previous week, and suicide ideation in community adults. For a sample of 202 adults, psychache fully mediated the relationship between suicide ideation and the frequency of psychological symptoms, and partially mediated the relationship between suicide ideation and the intensity of psychological symptoms. As such, mental pain fully or partially explains the process linking the frequency and the intensity of general distress to suicide ideation and, thus, mental pain is a target for potential intervention...

Suicide is one of the leading causes of violent death in many countries and its prevention is included in worldwide health objectives. Currently, the DSM-5 considers suicidal behavior as an entity that requires further study. Among the three validators required for considering a psychiatric disorder, there is one based on psychological correlates, biological markers, and patterns of comorbidity. This review includes the most important and recent studies on psychological factors: cognitive, emotional, temperament, and personality correlates (unrelated to diagnostic criteria)...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) is now legal in many jurisdictions for competent adults who have intolerable suffering and/or have a terminal illness with a short prognosis. Mental illness can be a source of suffering for these individuals, but it can also affect their capacity to make medical decisions. Clinicians, and psychiatrists in particular, need to understand how to assess patients with mental illness who are requesting MAID, to determine the impact of their mental illness on the MAID request...

Buddhism has grown in the United States in the past 50 years. Immigrants come following long traditions. American converts are more eclectic. The first Buddhist precept prohibiting harm to living things, the virtue of compassion, and the goal of a peaceful death provide guidance for ethical decision making regarding organ donation, withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment, voluntary cessation of eating, physician aid in dying, and euthanasia. Concepts and views from three Buddhist traditions and views of master practitioners are presented...

In late 2015, California passed the End of Life Option Act (AB 15), which allows residents at the terminal stage of an illness to request a prescription for medications meant to hasten death. As California seeks to implement the law in June 2016, findings from other states that practice aid in dying (AID) may guide implementation. This policy brief provides an overview of the use of AID, outlines outstanding questions about practice and ethics, and recommends steps for improving California's implementation of AB 15...

Soon, physicians across Canada will be permitted to assist patients in dying, provided certain conditions are met. Physicians in the province of Quebec can already provide this service since December 10, 2015. While Quebec has been studying the question of legislating medical aid in dying since 2009, the rest of the country must come up with legislation on this issue within the next few months. This article suggests that other Canadian jurisdictions, federally and provincially/territorially, may find inspiration in the extensive work done in Quebec leading to its end-of-life legislation, including on the issues of identifying proper safeguards to protect vulnerable people and eligibility criteria that could be put in place in these jurisdictions...

In February 2016, the Canadian Supreme Court argued in a unanimous decision that criminal statutes prohibiting physician-assisted or -directed termination violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In the unanimous judgment, they argued that the promise of "life, liberty, and sanctity of person" in s. 7 enshrined patient choice as a principal Canadian virtue. But for choice to be real, that requires a set of predicate conditions assuring fragile Canadians have free and ready access to a range of medical services including, in a partial list, expert counseling, home care aides, palliative treatment, rehabilitative services, and social support for themselves and familial carers...