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Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Mental Disorders: Ethical Positions in the Debate between Proportionality, Dignity, and the Right to Die

The admission of people suffering from psychiatric and neurocognitive disorders to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (E/PAS) in some European and non-European countries represents a controversial issue. In some countries, the initial limitation of E/PAS to cases of severe physical illness wi...

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Autores principales: Scopetti, Matteo, Morena, Donato, Padovano, Martina, Manetti, Federico, Di Fazio, Nicola, Delogu, Giuseppe, Ferracuti, Stefano, Frati, Paola, Fineschi, Vittorio
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10218690/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37239756
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11101470
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author Scopetti, Matteo
Morena, Donato
Padovano, Martina
Manetti, Federico
Di Fazio, Nicola
Delogu, Giuseppe
Ferracuti, Stefano
Frati, Paola
Fineschi, Vittorio
author_facet Scopetti, Matteo
Morena, Donato
Padovano, Martina
Manetti, Federico
Di Fazio, Nicola
Delogu, Giuseppe
Ferracuti, Stefano
Frati, Paola
Fineschi, Vittorio
author_sort Scopetti, Matteo
collection PubMed
description The admission of people suffering from psychiatric and neurocognitive disorders to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (E/PAS) in some European and non-European countries represents a controversial issue. In some countries, the initial limitation of E/PAS to cases of severe physical illness with poor prognosis in the short term has been overcome, as it was considered discriminatory; thus, E/PAS has also been made available to subjects suffering from mental disorders. This decision has raised significant ethical questions regarding the capacity and freedom of self-determination; the family, social, and economic contexts; the social consideration of the sense of dignity and the pressure on the judgment of one’s personal value; the contextual therapeutic possibilities; the identification of figures involved in the validation and application; as well as the epistemological definitions of the clinical conditions in question. To these issues must be added the situation of legislative vacuum peculiar to different countries and the widespread lack of effective evaluation and control systems. Nonetheless, pessimistic indicators on global health status, availability of care and assistance, aging demographics, and socioeconomic levels suggest that there may be further pressure toward the expansion of such requests. The present paper aims to trace an international overview with the aim of providing ethical support to the debate on the matter. Precisely, the goal is the delimitation of foundations for clinical practice in the complex field of psychiatry between the recognition of the irreversibility of the disease, assessment of the state of physical and mental suffering, as well as the possibility of adopting free and informed choices.
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spelling pubmed-102186902023-05-27 Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Mental Disorders: Ethical Positions in the Debate between Proportionality, Dignity, and the Right to Die Scopetti, Matteo Morena, Donato Padovano, Martina Manetti, Federico Di Fazio, Nicola Delogu, Giuseppe Ferracuti, Stefano Frati, Paola Fineschi, Vittorio Healthcare (Basel) Review The admission of people suffering from psychiatric and neurocognitive disorders to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (E/PAS) in some European and non-European countries represents a controversial issue. In some countries, the initial limitation of E/PAS to cases of severe physical illness with poor prognosis in the short term has been overcome, as it was considered discriminatory; thus, E/PAS has also been made available to subjects suffering from mental disorders. This decision has raised significant ethical questions regarding the capacity and freedom of self-determination; the family, social, and economic contexts; the social consideration of the sense of dignity and the pressure on the judgment of one’s personal value; the contextual therapeutic possibilities; the identification of figures involved in the validation and application; as well as the epistemological definitions of the clinical conditions in question. To these issues must be added the situation of legislative vacuum peculiar to different countries and the widespread lack of effective evaluation and control systems. Nonetheless, pessimistic indicators on global health status, availability of care and assistance, aging demographics, and socioeconomic levels suggest that there may be further pressure toward the expansion of such requests. The present paper aims to trace an international overview with the aim of providing ethical support to the debate on the matter. Precisely, the goal is the delimitation of foundations for clinical practice in the complex field of psychiatry between the recognition of the irreversibility of the disease, assessment of the state of physical and mental suffering, as well as the possibility of adopting free and informed choices. MDPI 2023-05-18 /pmc/articles/PMC10218690/ /pubmed/37239756 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11101470 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Scopetti, Matteo
Morena, Donato
Padovano, Martina
Manetti, Federico
Di Fazio, Nicola
Delogu, Giuseppe
Ferracuti, Stefano
Frati, Paola
Fineschi, Vittorio
Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Mental Disorders: Ethical Positions in the Debate between Proportionality, Dignity, and the Right to Die
title Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Mental Disorders: Ethical Positions in the Debate between Proportionality, Dignity, and the Right to Die
title_full Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Mental Disorders: Ethical Positions in the Debate between Proportionality, Dignity, and the Right to Die
title_fullStr Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Mental Disorders: Ethical Positions in the Debate between Proportionality, Dignity, and the Right to Die
title_full_unstemmed Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Mental Disorders: Ethical Positions in the Debate between Proportionality, Dignity, and the Right to Die
title_short Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Mental Disorders: Ethical Positions in the Debate between Proportionality, Dignity, and the Right to Die
title_sort assisted suicide and euthanasia in mental disorders: ethical positions in the debate between proportionality, dignity, and the right to die
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10218690/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37239756
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11101470
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