ArticleBMC palliative care2007
Attitudes towards terminal sedation: an empirical survey among experts in the field of medical ethics.
Article in BMC palliative care, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 52 citations in OpenAlex.
- Attitudes of physicians, nurses, and the general public toward End-of-Life (EoL) decisions in European countries: an umbrella review.BMC medical ethics · 2025Pooled it
- Attitudes of undergraduate medical students towards end-of-life decisions: a systematic review of influencing factors.BMC medical education · 2025Pooled it
- Cultural, religious, and demographic factors shaping Arab healthcare providers' decisions on referring Arab patients to palliative care in Israel: a qualitative study.BMC medical ethics · 2026Article
- Palliative sedation in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: results of a nationwide survey among neurologists and palliative care practitioners in Germany.BMC neurology · 2022Article
- Article
- British laypeople's attitudes towards gradual sedation, sedation to unconsciousness and euthanasia at the end of life.PloS one · 2021Article
- Palliative sedation: beliefs and decision-making among Spanish palliative care physicians.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2020Article
- The Attitudes of Indian Palliative-care Nurses and Physicians to Pain Control and Palliative Sedation.Indian journal of palliative care · 2011Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
background"Terminal sedation" regarded as the use of sedation in (pre-)terminal patients with treatment-refractory symptoms is controversially discussed not only within palliative medicine. While supporters consider terminal sedation as an indispensable palliative medical treatment option, opponents disapprove of it as "slow euthanasia". Against this background, we interviewed medical ethics experts by questionnaire on the term and the moral acceptance of terminal sedation in order to find out how they think about this topic. We were especially interested in whether experts with a professional medical and nursing background think differently about the topic than experts without this background.
methodsThe survey was carried out by questionnaire; beside the provided answering options free text comments were possible. As test persons we chose the 477 members of the German Academy for Ethics in Medicine, an interdisciplinary society for medical ethics.
results281 completed questionnaires were returned (response rate = 59%). The majority of persons without medical background regarded "terminal sedation" as an intentional elimination of consciousness until the patient's death occurs; persons with a medical background generally had a broader understanding of the term, including light or intermittent forms of sedation. 98% of the respondents regarded terminal sedation in dying patients with treatment-refractory physical symptoms as acceptable. Situations in which the dying process has not yet started, in which untreatable mental symptoms are the indication for terminal sedation or in which life-sustaining measures are withdrawn during sedation were evaluated as morally difficult.
conclusionThe survey reveals a great need for research and discussion on the medical indication as well as on the moral evaluation of terminal sedation. Prerequisite for this is a more precise terminology which describes the circumstances of the sedation.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.