Caregiver decision-making concerning involuntary treatment in dementia care at home

Background: Dementia care at home often involves decisions in which the caregiver must weigh safety concerns with respect for autonomy. These dilemmas can lead to situations where caregivers provide care against the will of persons living with dementia, referred to as involuntary treatment. To prevent this, insight is needed into how family caregivers of persons living with dementia deal with care situations that can lead to involuntary treatment. Objective: To identify and describe family caregivers’ experiences regarding care decisions for situations that can lead to involuntary treatment use in persons living with dementia at home. Research design: A qualitative descriptive interview design. Data were analysed using the Qualitative Analysis Guide of Leuven. Participants and research context: A total of 10 family caregivers providing care for 13 persons living with dementia participated in in-depth semi-struct ured interviews. Participants were recruited by registered nurses via purposive sampling. Ethical consideration: The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University Hospitals Leuven and the Medical Ethical Test Committee Zuyderland. Findings: Family caregivers experience the decision-making process concerning care dilemmas that can lead to involuntary treatment as complicated, stressful and exhausting. Although they consider safety and autonomy as important values, they struggle with finding the right balance between them. Due to the progressive and unpredictable nature of dementia, they are constantly seeking solutions while they adapt to new situations. Family caregivers feel responsible and experience social pressure for the safety of persons living with dementia. They may be blamed if something adverse happens to the persons living with dementia, which increases an already stressful situation. Their experience is influenced by characteristics of the care triad (persons living with dementia, professional and family caregivers) such as practical and emotional support, knowledge, and previous experiences. Discussion and conclusion: To prevent involuntary treatment, professionals need to proactively inform family caregivers, and they need to support each other in dealing with complex care situations

Nurse managers' experience with ethical issues in six government hospitals in Malaysia: A cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Nurse managers have the burden of experiencing frequent ethical issues related to both their managerial and nursing care duties, according to previous international studies. However, no such study was published in Malaysia. The purpose of this study was to explore nurse managers' experience with ethical issues in six government hospitals in Malaysia including learning about the way they dealt with the issues.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross-sectional study was conducted in August-September, 2010 involving 417 (69.2%) of total 603 nurse managers in the six Malaysian government hospitals. Data were collected using three-part self-administered questionnaire. Part I was regarding participants' demographics. Part II was about the frequency and areas of management where ethical issues were experienced, and scoring of the importance of 11 pre-identified ethical issues. Part III asked how they dealt with ethical issues in general; ways to deal with the 11 pre-identified ethical issues, and perceived stress level. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations and Pearson's Chi-square.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 397 (95.2%) participants experienced ethical issues and 47.2% experienced them on weekly to daily basis. Experiencing ethical issues were not associated with areas of practice. Top area of management where ethical issues were encountered was "staff management", but "patient care" related ethical issues were rated as most important. Majority would "discuss with other nurses" in dealing generally with the issues. For pre-identified ethical issues regarding "patient care", "discuss with doctors" was preferred. Only 18.1% referred issues to "ethics committees" and 53.0% to the code of ethics.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Nurse managers, regardless of their areas of practice, frequently experienced ethical issues. For dealing with these, team-approach needs to be emphasized. Proper understanding of the code of ethics is needed to provide basis for reasoning.</p

Physicians' Attitudes on Resuscitation of Extremely Premature Infants: A Systematic Review

CONTEXT: Whether to resuscitate extremely premature infants (EPIs) is a clinically and ethically difficult decision to make. Indications and practices vary greatly across different countries and institutions, which suggests that resuscitation decisions may be influenced more by the attitudes of the individual treating physicians. Hence, gaining in-depth insight into physicians' attitudes improves our understanding of decision-making regarding resuscitation of EPIs. OBJECTIVE: To better understand physicians' attitudes toward resuscitation of EPIs and factors that influence their attitudes through a systematic review of the empirical literature. DATA SOURCES: Medline, Embase, Web of Science, and Scopus. STUDY SELECTION: We selected English-language articles in which researchers report on empirical studies of physicians' attitudes toward resuscitation of EPIs. DATA EXTRACTION: The articles were repeatedly read, themes were identified, and data were tabulated, compared, and analyzed descriptively. RESULTS: Thirty-four articles were included. In general, physicians were more willing to resuscitate, to accept parents' resuscitation requests, and to refuse parents' nonresuscitation requests as gestational age (GA) increased. However, attitudes vary greatly for infants at GA 23 to 24 weeks, known as the gray zone. Although GA is the primary factor that influences physicians' attitudes, a complex interplay of patient- and non-patient-related factors also influences their attitudes. LIMITATIONS: Analysis of English-only articles may limit generalizability of the results. In addition, authors of only 1 study used a qualitative approach, which may have led to a biased reductionist approach to understanding physicians' attitudes. CONCLUSIONS: Although correlations between GA and attitudes emerged, the results suggested a more complex interplay of factors influencing such attitudes.status: publishe