ArticleBMC medical ethics2021
Clinical ethics case consultation in a university department of cardiology and intensive care: a descriptive evaluation of consultation protocols.
Article in BMC medical ethics, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 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.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- A review of clinical ethics consultations in a regional healthcare system over a two-year timeframe.BMC medical ethics · 2024Article
- Exploration of clinical ethics consultation in Uganda: a case study of Uganda Cancer Institute.BMC medical ethics · 2024Article
- Characterization of patients requiring inpatient hospital ethics consults- A single center study.PloS one · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundClinical ethics case consultations (CECCs) provide a structured approach in situations of ethical uncertainty or conflicts. There have been increasing calls in recent years to assess the quality of CECCs by means of empirical research. This study provides detailed data of a descriptive quantitative and qualitative evaluation of a CECC service in a department of cardiology and intensive care at a German university hospital.
methodsSemi-structured document analysis of CECCs was conducted in the period of November 1, 2018, to May 31, 2020. All documents were analysed by two researchers independently.
resultsTwenty-four CECCs were requested within the study period, of which most (n = 22; 92%) had been initiated by physicians of the department. The patients were an average of 79 years old (R: 43-96), and 14 (58%) patients were female. The median length of stay prior to request was 12.5 days (R: 1-65 days). The most frequent diagnoses (several diagnoses possible) were cardiology-related (n = 29), followed by sepsis (n = 11) and cancer (n = 6). Twenty patients lacked decisional capacity. The main reason for a CECC request was uncertainty about the balancing of potential benefit and harm related to the medically indicated treatment (n = 18). Further reasons included differing views regarding the best individual treatment option between health professionals and patients (n = 3) or between different team members (n = 3). Consensus between participants could be reached in 18 (75%) consultations. The implementation of a disease specific treatment intervention was recommended in five cases. Palliative care and limitation of further disease specific interventions was recommended in 12 cases.
conclusionsTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first in-depth evaluation of a CECC service set up for an academic department of cardiology and intensive medical care. Patient characteristics and the issues deliberated during CECC provide a starting point for the development and testing of more tailored clinical ethics support services and research on CECC outcomes.
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