Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30896350›Full record

ArticleThe American journal of bioethics : AJOB2019

Withholding and Withdrawing Life-Sustaining Treatment: Ethically Equivalent?

Lars Øystein Ursin

Abstract readComment
PubMed Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in The American journal of bioethics : AJOB, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
14citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

14 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Review
  7. Review
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Review
  12. Formulating an Ethics of Pharmaceutical Disinvestment.Journal of bioethical inquiry · 2020
    Article
  13. Withdrawal Aversion and the Equivalence Test.The American journal of bioethics : AJOB · 2019
    Article
  14. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Lars Øystein Ursina Norwegian University of Science and Technology.ORCID 0000-0001-5892-2823

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Withholding and withdrawing treatment are widely regarded as ethically equivalent in medical guidelines and ethics literature. Health care personnel, however, widely perceive moral differences between withholding and withdrawing. The proponents of equivalence argue that any perceived difference can be explained in terms of cognitive biases and flawed reasoning. Thus, policymakers should clear away any resistance to accept the equivalence stance by moral education. To embark on such a campaign of changing attitudes, we need to be convinced that the ethical analysis is correct. Is it? In this article, I take a closer look at the moral relation between withholding and withdrawing. My conclusion is that withholding and withdrawing are not in general ethically equivalent. Thus, medical guidelines should be rewritten, and rather than being "educated" away from their sound judgments, medical professionals and patients should have nuanced medico-ethical discussions regarding withholding and withdrawing treatment.

Indexed as

Life Support CareWithholding TreatmentEthical AnalysisHealth PersonnelHumansMoralsdecision makingmoral theoryprofessional ethics

Identifiers

PMID30896350

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.