Attitudes to End-of-Life Decisions in Paediatric Intensive Care

The aim of this study was to assess attitudes of intensive care nurses to selected ethical issues related to end-of-life decisions in paediatric intensive care units. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed in 2005 to intensive care nurses at two different scientific occasions in Turkey. O...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Akpinar, Aslihan (Author) ; Senses, Muesser Ozcan (Author) ; Aydin Er, Rahime (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sage 2009
In: Nursing ethics
Year: 2009, Volume: 16, Issue: 1, Pages: 83-92
Further subjects:B attitudes of health personnel
B paediatric intensive care
B treatment futility
B clinical ethics
B end-of-life care
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Summary:The aim of this study was to assess attitudes of intensive care nurses to selected ethical issues related to end-of-life decisions in paediatric intensive care units. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed in 2005 to intensive care nurses at two different scientific occasions in Turkey. Of the 155 intensive care nurse participants, 98% were women. Fifty-three percent of these had intensive care experience of more than four years. Most of the nurses failed to agree about withholding (65%) or withdrawing (60%) futile treatment. In addition, 68% agreed that intravenous nutrition must continue at all costs. In futile treatment cases, the nurses tended to leave the decision to parents or act maternalistically. The results showed that intensive care nurses could ignore essential ethical duties in end-of-life care. We suggest that it is necessary to educate Turkish intensive care nurses about ethical issues at the end of life.
ISSN:1477-0989
Contains:Enthalten in: Nursing ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/0969733008097994