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Evaluating requests for physician‐assisted suicide. A survey among German oncologists

BACKGROUND: Cancer patients form a notable proportion of requestors for physician‐assisted suicide (PAS). This manuscript provides data on German oncologists' views concerning due criteria for the assessment of requests for PAS and quality assurance. METHODS: The German Society of Haematology a...

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Autores principales: Schildmann, Jan, Cinci, Marc, Kupsch, Leonie, Oldenburg, Michael, Wörmann, Bernhard, Nadolny, Stephan, Winkler, Eva
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9883542/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35770954
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cam4.4981
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author Schildmann, Jan
Cinci, Marc
Kupsch, Leonie
Oldenburg, Michael
Wörmann, Bernhard
Nadolny, Stephan
Winkler, Eva
author_facet Schildmann, Jan
Cinci, Marc
Kupsch, Leonie
Oldenburg, Michael
Wörmann, Bernhard
Nadolny, Stephan
Winkler, Eva
author_sort Schildmann, Jan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Cancer patients form a notable proportion of requestors for physician‐assisted suicide (PAS). This manuscript provides data on German oncologists' views concerning due criteria for the assessment of requests for PAS and quality assurance. METHODS: The German Society of Haematology and Medical Oncology (DGHO) has conducted a survey among its members to elicit data about practices and views on regulating PAS in March 2021. Descriptive analysis and bivariate logistic regression of quantitative data on socio‐demographic and other determinants possibly associated with respondents' views on PAS as well as content analysis of qualitative data were performed. RESULTS: About 57.1% (n = 425) of respondents (n = 745) indicated that they had been asked for information about PAS by patients. Information about palliative (92.7%; n = 651) and psychological care options (85.6%; n = 598) was deemed most important in cases of requests for PAS. More than half of the respondents (57.6%; n = 429) were in favour of a formal expert assessment of decisional capacity and about 33.4% (n = 249) favoured a time span of 14 days between the counselling and prescription of a lethal drug. There was no association between participants who received more requests and a preference for disclosing publicly their willingness to assist with suicide. A majority of respondents requested measures of quality assurance (71.3%; n = 531). CONCLUSION: According to respondents' views, the regulation of PAS will require diligent procedures regarding the assessment of decisional capacity and counselling. The findings suggest that the development of adequate and feasible criteria to assess the quality of practices is an important task.
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spelling pubmed-98835422023-01-31 Evaluating requests for physician‐assisted suicide. A survey among German oncologists Schildmann, Jan Cinci, Marc Kupsch, Leonie Oldenburg, Michael Wörmann, Bernhard Nadolny, Stephan Winkler, Eva Cancer Med RESEARCH ARTICLES BACKGROUND: Cancer patients form a notable proportion of requestors for physician‐assisted suicide (PAS). This manuscript provides data on German oncologists' views concerning due criteria for the assessment of requests for PAS and quality assurance. METHODS: The German Society of Haematology and Medical Oncology (DGHO) has conducted a survey among its members to elicit data about practices and views on regulating PAS in March 2021. Descriptive analysis and bivariate logistic regression of quantitative data on socio‐demographic and other determinants possibly associated with respondents' views on PAS as well as content analysis of qualitative data were performed. RESULTS: About 57.1% (n = 425) of respondents (n = 745) indicated that they had been asked for information about PAS by patients. Information about palliative (92.7%; n = 651) and psychological care options (85.6%; n = 598) was deemed most important in cases of requests for PAS. More than half of the respondents (57.6%; n = 429) were in favour of a formal expert assessment of decisional capacity and about 33.4% (n = 249) favoured a time span of 14 days between the counselling and prescription of a lethal drug. There was no association between participants who received more requests and a preference for disclosing publicly their willingness to assist with suicide. A majority of respondents requested measures of quality assurance (71.3%; n = 531). CONCLUSION: According to respondents' views, the regulation of PAS will require diligent procedures regarding the assessment of decisional capacity and counselling. The findings suggest that the development of adequate and feasible criteria to assess the quality of practices is an important task. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-06-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9883542/ /pubmed/35770954 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cam4.4981 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Cancer Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle RESEARCH ARTICLES
Schildmann, Jan
Cinci, Marc
Kupsch, Leonie
Oldenburg, Michael
Wörmann, Bernhard
Nadolny, Stephan
Winkler, Eva
Evaluating requests for physician‐assisted suicide. A survey among German oncologists
title Evaluating requests for physician‐assisted suicide. A survey among German oncologists
title_full Evaluating requests for physician‐assisted suicide. A survey among German oncologists
title_fullStr Evaluating requests for physician‐assisted suicide. A survey among German oncologists
title_full_unstemmed Evaluating requests for physician‐assisted suicide. A survey among German oncologists
title_short Evaluating requests for physician‐assisted suicide. A survey among German oncologists
title_sort evaluating requests for physician‐assisted suicide. a survey among german oncologists
topic RESEARCH ARTICLES
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9883542/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35770954
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cam4.4981
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