Dataset Information

When is hastened death considered suicide? A systematically conducted literature review about palliative care professionals' experiences where assisted dying is legal.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Laws allowing assisted suicide and euthanasia have been implemented in many locations around the world but some individuals suffering with terminal illness receiving palliative care services are hastening death or die by suicide without assistance. This systematic review aims to summarise evidence of palliative care professionals' experiences of patients who died by suicide or hastened death in areas where assisted dying is legal and to understand when hastened death is considered to be a suicide.

Methods

AMED, CINAHL Complete, PsycINFO, PubMED, and Academic Search Ultimate were searched for articles from inception through June 2018. Quality assessment used the Hawker framework.

Results

A total of 1518 titles were screened resulting in thirty studies meeting eligibility criteria for this review. Published studies about professionals' experiences from areas with legalised assisted dying includes limited information about patients who hasten death outside legal guidelines, die by suicide without assistance, or if the law impacts suicide among palliative care patients.

Conclusion

There are a range of experiences and emotions professionals' experience with patients who die by euthanasia, assisted suicide, or hasten death without assistance. The included literature suggests improved communication among professionals is needed but does not explicitly identify when a hastened death is deemed a suicide in areas where assisted dying is practiced. More research is needed to help clarify what hastened death means in a palliative care context and identify how and if assisted dying impacts issues of suicide in palliative care settings.

SUBMITTER: Gerson SM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6717643 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

When is hastened death considered suicide? A systematically conducted literature review about palliative care professionals' experiences where assisted dying is legal.

Gerson Sheri Mila SM Bingley Amanda A Preston Nancy N Grinyer Anne A

BMC palliative care 20190831 1

<h4>Background</h4>Laws allowing assisted suicide and euthanasia have been implemented in many locations around the world but some individuals suffering with terminal illness receiving palliative care services are hastening death or die by suicide without assistance. This systematic review aims to summarise evidence of palliative care professionals' experiences of patients who died by suicide or hastened death in areas where assisted dying is legal and to understand when hastened death is consid ...[more]

PMID: 31472690

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Project description:BackgroundTelehealth seems feasible for use in home-based palliative care. However, acceptance among health care professionals (HCPs) is essential for the successful delivery of telehealth in practice. No scoping review has mapped the experiences and perspectives of HCPs on the use of telehealth for home-based palliative care.ObjectiveThe aim of this review is to systematically map published studies on HCPs' experiences and perspectives on the use of telehealth in home-based palliative care.MethodsThe proposed scoping review will employ the methodology of Arksey and O'Malley. This protocol is guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocol (PRISMA-P). A systematic search will be performed in MEDLINE, PsycINFO, EMBASE, CINAHL, Allied and Complementary Medicine (AMED), and Web of Science for studies published between January 2000 and July 5, 2021. We will also hand search the reference lists of included papers to identify additional studies of relevance. The search will be updated in 2022. Pairs of authors will independently assess the eligibility of studies and extract data. The first 2 stages of thematic synthesis will be used to thematically organize the data. Because the scoping review methodology consists of reviewing and collecting data from publicly available materials, this study does not require ethics approval.ResultsThe database searches; testing of eligibility criteria; and screening of titles, abstracts, and full-text papers will be performed by fall 2021. The results from this scoping review will be presented as a descriptive summary of the results from all included papers, and will be inductively organized into descriptive themes. A frequency table illustrating which papers were included in which descriptive themes will be made. Results are anticipated by the fall of 2022.ConclusionsA mapping of studies could identify research gaps regarding HCPs' experiences and perspectives on the use of telehealth in home-based palliative care and may determine the value and feasibility of conducting a full systematic review.International registered report identifier (irrid)PRR1-10.2196/33305.

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Dataset Information

When is hastened death considered suicide? A systematically conducted literature review about palliative care professionals' experiences where assisted dying is legal.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Publications

When is hastened death considered suicide? A systematically conducted literature review about palliative care professionals' experiences where assisted dying is legal.

Similar Datasets

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