The Role of Nurses in Euthanasia and other Medical End-of-Life Decisions

Background
Nurses, as the largest group among the health care professionals, are by the nature of their work involved in end-of-life care.
 
Objectives
The general objective is to study the attitudes and involvement of Flemish nurses in end-of-life practices. More specifically, the research questions are:

• The attitudes of nurses towards end-of-life practices

1. What are the attitudes towards euthanasia and other end-of-life decisions
   1. of nurses who care for patients in general?
   2. of nurses who care for dying children?
2. How do nurses perceive their role in euthanasia and other end-of-life decisions?

• The involvement of nurses in end-of-life practices

3. How often are nurses consulted by physicians in medical end-of-life decisions? 
4. How are nurses who care for dying children involved in different end-of-life decisions? (
5. How are nurses involved throughout the different phases of euthanasia and the use of life-ending drugs without explicit request?
6. How do nurses who care for dying patients perceive continuous deep sedation and what is their role in it?

 
Methods
Three different data sources were used, all with a quantitative and cross-sectional design. The first data source was composed by setting up an original study wherein a large group of nurses were questioned. Those data were enriched with data from a group of death certificate studies that were performed in 1998, 2001 and 2007, and with a study performed among nurses in paediatric intensive care units.
 
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