ArticleThe Pan African medical journal2023
Attitudes, beliefs, and practices toward end-of-life care among physicians in sub-Saharan Africa.
Article in The Pan African medical journal, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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1 citing paper in PubMed, 0 citations in OpenAlex.
- The impact of COVID-19 on the knowledge, attitudes and practices of end-of-life care and decision making amongst doctors in South African Emergency Departments.African journal of emergency medicine : Revue africaine de la medecine d'urgence · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: as the opportunity to receive life-sustaining treatments expands in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), so do potential ethical dilemmas. Little is known regarding the attitudes, beliefs, and practices of physicians in SSA regarding end-of-life care ethics. Methods: we used validated survey items addressing physician end-of-life care views and added SSA-context specific items. We identified a convenience sample using the authors' existing African professional contacts and snowball recruitment. Participants were invited via email to an anonymous online survey. Results: we contacted 78 physicians who practice critical care in Africa, and 68% (n=53) completed the survey. Of those, 66% were male, 55% were aged 36-45, 75% were Christian. They were from Kenya (30%), Zambia (28%), Rwanda (25%), Botswana (11%), and other countries (6%). Most (75%) agreed that competent patients can refuse even life-saving care. Only 32% agreed that their hospital had clear policies regarding withdrawing and withholding care, 11% agreed that their country had legal precedent for end-of-life care, and 43% believed that doctors could face legal or financial consequences for allowing patients to die by forgoing treatment. Pain control at the end of life, even if it may hasten death, was supported by 83%. However, 75% felt that clinicians undertreat pain due to fear of hastening death. Conclusion: participants strongly supported patient autonomy and end-of-life pain control but expressed concern that inadequate policy and legal frameworks exist to guide care and that pain is undertreated. Humane and actionable end-of-life care frameworks are needed to guide decisions in SSA.
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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.