ArticleJournal of religion and health2016
US Physicians' Opinions about Distinctions between Withdrawing and Withholding Life-Sustaining Treatment.
Article in Journal of religion and health, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 65 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Review
- Who decides who goes first? Taking democracy seriously in micro-allocative healthcare decisions.Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2025Article
- Severe cognitive disability, medically complex children and long-term ventilation.Monash bioethics review · 2025Article
- Physicians' moral distinctions between medical assistance in dying (MAiD) and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment in Canada: a qualitative descriptive study.BMC medical ethics · 2025Article
- A network analysis of timing and conditions present at time of death for periviable infants (22+0-23+6 weeks) admitted to neonatal intensive care after receiving survival-focused care at birth.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2025Article
- Recovery Potential in Patients Who Died After Withdrawal of Life-Sustaining Treatment: A TRACK-TBI Propensity Score Analysis.Journal of neurotrauma · 2024Article
- Physicians' experiences and perceptions about withholding and withdrawal life-sustaining treatment in Chiang Mai University Hospital: a cross-sectional study.BMC palliative care · 2024Article
- Limitation of life sustaining therapy in disorders of consciousness: ethics and practice.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2024Review
- Beyond Legal Boundaries: Public and Clinician Perspectives on Treatment Withdrawal in Infants With Poor Neurological Prognosis.Journal of Korean medical science · 2024Article
- End of life care in the setting of extreme prematurity - practical challenges and ethical controversies.Seminars in fetal & neonatal medicine · 2023Review
- Attitudes, beliefs, and practices toward end-of-life care among physicians in sub-Saharan Africa.The Pan African medical journal · 2023Article
- Withdrawing or withholding treatments in health care rationing: an interview study on ethical views and implications.BMC medical ethics · 2022Article
- Withdrawal Aversion and the Equivalence Test.The American journal of bioethics : AJOB · 2019Article
- Death, Devices, and Double Effect.HEC forum : an interdisciplinary journal on hospitals' ethical and legal issues · 2019Article
- Does special education in palliative medicine make a difference in end-of-life decision-making?BMC palliative care · 2018Article
- A few realistic questions raised by organ retrieval in the intensive care unit.Annals of translational medicine · 2017Review
- Understanding the role of religious views in the discussion about resuscitation at the threshold of viability.Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association · 2016Article
- Does Decision-making in End-of-life Care Differ Between Graduating Medical Students and Experienced Physicians?In vivo (Athens, Greece)Article
- "We're Not Ready, But I Don't Think You're Ever Ready." Clinician Perspectives on Implementation of Crisis Standards of Care.AJOB empirical bioethicsArticle
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 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Decisions to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment (LST) precede the majority of ICU deaths. Although professional guidelines generally treat the two as ethically equivalent, evidence suggests withdrawing LST is often more psychologically difficult than withholding it. The aim of the experiment was to investigate whether physicians are more supportive of withholding LST than withdrawing it and to assess how physicians' opinions are shaped by their religious characteristics, specialty, and experience caring for dying patients. In 2010, a survey was mailed to 2016 practicing US physicians. Physicians were asked whether physicians should always comply with a competent patient's request to withdraw LST, whether withdrawing LST is more psychologically difficult than withholding it, and whether withdrawing LST is typically more ethically problematic than withholding it. Of 1880 eligible physicians, 1156 responded to the survey (62%); 93% agreed that physicians should always comply with a competent patient's request to withdraw LST. More than half of the physicians reported that they find withdrawing LST more psychologically difficult than withholding it (61%), and that withdrawing LST is typically more ethically problematic (59%). Physician religiosity was associated with finding withdrawal more ethically problematic, but not with finding it more psychologically difficult. Physicians working in an end-of-life specialty and physicians with more experience caring for dying patients were less likely to endorse either a psychological or an ethical distinction between withdrawing and withholding LST. Most US physicians find withdrawing LST not only more psychologically difficult, but also more ethically problematic than withholding such treatment. Physicians' opinions are to some extent shaped by their religious characteristics, specialty, and levels of experience caring for dying patients.
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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.