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Belgian psychiatrists’ attitudes towards, and readiness to engage in, euthanasia assessment procedures with adults with psychiatric conditions: a survey
BACKGROUND: Although the Belgian assessment pathway for legal euthanasia requires the engagement of at least one psychiatrist, little is known about psychiatrists’ attitudes towards euthanasia for adults with psychiatric conditions (APC). This study aims to gauge psychiatrists’ attitudes towards and...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7364603/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32678038 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-020-02775-x |
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author | Verhofstadt, Monica Audenaert, Kurt Van den Broeck, Kris Deliens, Luc Mortier, Freddy Titeca, Koen Pardon, Koen Chambaere, Kenneth |
author_facet | Verhofstadt, Monica Audenaert, Kurt Van den Broeck, Kris Deliens, Luc Mortier, Freddy Titeca, Koen Pardon, Koen Chambaere, Kenneth |
author_sort | Verhofstadt, Monica |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Although the Belgian assessment pathway for legal euthanasia requires the engagement of at least one psychiatrist, little is known about psychiatrists’ attitudes towards euthanasia for adults with psychiatric conditions (APC). This study aims to gauge psychiatrists’ attitudes towards and readiness to engage in euthanasia assessment and/or performance procedures in APC. METHODS: This cross-sectional survey study was performed between November 2018 and April 2019. The survey was sent to a sample of 499 eligible psychiatrists affiliated to the Flemish Association for Psychiatry, a professional association that aims to unite and represent all psychiatrists working in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking, northern part of Belgium. The Association’s members comprise an estimated 80–90% of all psychiatrists active in Flanders. Only psychiatrists working with APC (83% of the association’s total membership) were included. Factorial Anova and Chi Square tests were performed to examine if and to what extent psychiatrists’ backgrounds were associated with, respectively, their attitudes and their readiness to play a role in euthanasia procedures concerning APC. RESULTS: One hundred eighty-four psychiatrists completed the questionnaire (response rate 40.2%); 74.5% agree that euthanasia should remain permissible for APC. However, 68.9% question some of the approaches taken by other physicians during the euthanasia assessment and only half consider euthanasia assessment procedures compatible with the psychiatric care relationship. Where active engagement is concerned, an informal referral (68%) or preliminary advisory role (43.8%) is preferred to a formal role as a legally required advising physician (30.3%), let alone as performing physician (< 10%). CONCLUSION: Although three quarters agree with maintaining the legal option of euthanasia for APC, their readiness to take a formal role in euthanasia procedures appears to be limited. More insight is required into the barriers preventing engagement and what psychiatrists need, be it education or clarification of the legal requirements, to ensure that patients can have their euthanasia requests assessed adequately. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7364603 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-73646032020-07-20 Belgian psychiatrists’ attitudes towards, and readiness to engage in, euthanasia assessment procedures with adults with psychiatric conditions: a survey Verhofstadt, Monica Audenaert, Kurt Van den Broeck, Kris Deliens, Luc Mortier, Freddy Titeca, Koen Pardon, Koen Chambaere, Kenneth BMC Psychiatry Research Article BACKGROUND: Although the Belgian assessment pathway for legal euthanasia requires the engagement of at least one psychiatrist, little is known about psychiatrists’ attitudes towards euthanasia for adults with psychiatric conditions (APC). This study aims to gauge psychiatrists’ attitudes towards and readiness to engage in euthanasia assessment and/or performance procedures in APC. METHODS: This cross-sectional survey study was performed between November 2018 and April 2019. The survey was sent to a sample of 499 eligible psychiatrists affiliated to the Flemish Association for Psychiatry, a professional association that aims to unite and represent all psychiatrists working in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking, northern part of Belgium. The Association’s members comprise an estimated 80–90% of all psychiatrists active in Flanders. Only psychiatrists working with APC (83% of the association’s total membership) were included. Factorial Anova and Chi Square tests were performed to examine if and to what extent psychiatrists’ backgrounds were associated with, respectively, their attitudes and their readiness to play a role in euthanasia procedures concerning APC. RESULTS: One hundred eighty-four psychiatrists completed the questionnaire (response rate 40.2%); 74.5% agree that euthanasia should remain permissible for APC. However, 68.9% question some of the approaches taken by other physicians during the euthanasia assessment and only half consider euthanasia assessment procedures compatible with the psychiatric care relationship. Where active engagement is concerned, an informal referral (68%) or preliminary advisory role (43.8%) is preferred to a formal role as a legally required advising physician (30.3%), let alone as performing physician (< 10%). CONCLUSION: Although three quarters agree with maintaining the legal option of euthanasia for APC, their readiness to take a formal role in euthanasia procedures appears to be limited. More insight is required into the barriers preventing engagement and what psychiatrists need, be it education or clarification of the legal requirements, to ensure that patients can have their euthanasia requests assessed adequately. BioMed Central 2020-07-16 /pmc/articles/PMC7364603/ /pubmed/32678038 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-020-02775-x Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Verhofstadt, Monica Audenaert, Kurt Van den Broeck, Kris Deliens, Luc Mortier, Freddy Titeca, Koen Pardon, Koen Chambaere, Kenneth Belgian psychiatrists’ attitudes towards, and readiness to engage in, euthanasia assessment procedures with adults with psychiatric conditions: a survey |
title | Belgian psychiatrists’ attitudes towards, and readiness to engage in, euthanasia assessment procedures with adults with psychiatric conditions: a survey |
title_full | Belgian psychiatrists’ attitudes towards, and readiness to engage in, euthanasia assessment procedures with adults with psychiatric conditions: a survey |
title_fullStr | Belgian psychiatrists’ attitudes towards, and readiness to engage in, euthanasia assessment procedures with adults with psychiatric conditions: a survey |
title_full_unstemmed | Belgian psychiatrists’ attitudes towards, and readiness to engage in, euthanasia assessment procedures with adults with psychiatric conditions: a survey |
title_short | Belgian psychiatrists’ attitudes towards, and readiness to engage in, euthanasia assessment procedures with adults with psychiatric conditions: a survey |
title_sort | belgian psychiatrists’ attitudes towards, and readiness to engage in, euthanasia assessment procedures with adults with psychiatric conditions: a survey |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7364603/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32678038 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-020-02775-x |
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