ArticleBMJ (Clinical research ed.)2009
Euthanasia and other end of life decisions and care provided in final three months of life: nationwide retrospective study in Belgium.
Article in BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Assisted Suicide in Austria: Nurses' Understanding of Patients' Requests and the Role of Patient Symptoms.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Physician-Patient Relationship, Assisted Suicide and the Italian Constitutional Court.Journal of bioethical inquiry · 2021Article
- The Relationship of Palliative Care With Assisted Dying Where Assisted Dying is Lawful: A Systematic Scoping Review of the Literature.Journal of pain and symptom management · 2020Article
- Involvement of palliative care in euthanasia practice in a context of legalized euthanasia: A population-based mortality follow-back study.Palliative medicine · 2018Article
- Palliative care professionals' willingness to perform euthanasia or physician assisted suicide.BMC palliative care · 2015Article
- Questions and answers on the Belgian model of integral end-of-life care: experiment? Prototype? : "Eu-euthanasia": the close historical, and evidently synergistic, relationship between palliative care and euthanasia in Belgium: an interview with a doctor involved in the early development of both and two of his successors.Journal of bioethical inquiry · 2014Article
- Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a prospective study.Journal of neurology · 2014Article
- Towards a standardised approach for evaluating guidelines and guidance documents on palliative sedation: study protocol.BMC palliative care · 2014Article
- Death wishes and explicit requests for euthanasia in a palliative care hospital: an analysis of patients files.BMC palliative care · 2014Article
- Article
- Assisted or hastened death: the healthcare practitioner's dilemma.Global journal of health science · 2012Article
- Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia.The Permanente journal · 2012Article
- Legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide: the illusion of safeguards and controls.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2011Article
- Our debt to those who are dying: the UK medical establishment should reconsider its stance on assisted suicide.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2009Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo explore the relation between the care provided in the final three months of life and the prevalence and types of end of life decisions in Belgium. Design Two year nationwide retrospective study, 2005-6 (SENTI-MELC study).
settingData collection via the sentinel network of general practitioners, an epidemiological surveillance system representative of all general practitioners in Belgium. SUBJECTS: 1690 non-sudden deaths in practices of the sentinel general practitioners.
main outcome measuresNon-sudden deaths of patients (aged >1 year) reported each week. Reported care provided in the final three months of life and the end of life decisions made. Multivariable regression analysis controlled for age, sex, cause, and place of death.
resultsUse of specialist multidisciplinary palliative care services was associated with intensified alleviation of symptoms (odds ratio 2.1, 95% confidence interval 1.6 to 2.6), continuous deep sedation forgoing food/fluid (2.9, 1.7 to 4.9), and the total of decisions explicitly intended to shorten life (1.5, 1.1 to 2.1) but not with euthanasia or physician assisted suicide in particular. To a large extent receiving spiritual care was associated with higher frequencies of euthanasia or physician assisted suicide than receiving little spiritual care (18.5, 2.0 to 172.7).
conclusionsEnd of life decisions that shorten life, including euthanasia or physician assisted suicide, are not related to a lower use of palliative care in Belgium and often occur within the context of multidisciplinary care.
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