Abstract
In France, a recent law emphasizes patient rights and prohibits unwanted therapies in end-of-life care. As end-of-life home care is increasing, we aimed to assess French district nurses' attitudes toward terminally ill patients' autonomy. We used data from a nationwide telephone survey conducted in 2005 among a random sample of French district nurses (n = 602). Nurses' attitudes were assessed with a clinical case describing a patient (randomly defined as a male or a female aged 50 years) having amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) who urgently needs mechanical ventilation. Nurses were asked whether patient consent was necessary before performing intubation/tracheotomy, and the analysis took into account various covariates, including nurses' religiosity, nurses' attitudes toward living wills, and patient sex. Overall, 44% of nurses considered that an ALS patient with respiratory failure should always be intubated (53% for a female patient, 40% for a male patient, P < .01), and after intubation, 27% upheld tracheotomy without considering patient consent as a necessary prerequisite (39% among male nurses, 30% among female nurses, P < .05). Poor communication with terminal patients and hostility toward living will were also predicti...Continue Reading
References
Jun 15, 1990·Annals of Internal Medicine·L J SchneidermanA R Jonsen
Feb 1, 1993·Neurology·A H MossM Siegler
Nov 10, 1998·Journal of Neurology·G D Borasio, R Voltz
Sep 6, 2000·Social Science & Medicine·C Seale
Oct 10, 2001·Palliative Medicine·G Di Mola, M T Crisci
Jun 1, 2002·Critical Care Nursing Clinics of North America·Ferne C Kyba
Jul 12, 2003·Intensive Care Medicine·Elie AzoulayUNKNOWN French Famirea Group
Jul 29, 2003·Palliative Medicine·Trevor D B ThompsonLisa Schwartz
Mar 30, 2004·Palliative Medicine·Silvia Rossi FerrarioAnna Maria Zotti
Sep 3, 2004·Critical Care Medicine·Elie AzoulayUNKNOWN FAMIREA Study Group
Sep 21, 2004·Oncology Nursing Forum·Deborah L VolkerJoy H Penticuff
Oct 13, 2004·International Journal of Nursing Studies·S Speed, K A Luker
Dec 30, 2004·Palliative Medicine·Martin Weber, Lieselotte Grohmann
Apr 7, 2005·Palliative Medicine·T Vejlgaard, J M Addington-Hall
Jun 30, 2005·Palliative Medicine·Hella E BrandtGerrit van der Wal
Jul 12, 2005·Nursing Ethics·D DoutrichS Izumi
Jul 12, 2005·Nursing Ethics·S Breier-Mackie
Oct 29, 2005·Journal of Critical Care·Valerie A PaldaMartin G Chapman
Citations
Dec 6, 2006·Journal of Medical Ethics·E FerrandJ Marty
Sep 17, 2013·Nursing Ethics·Francesca IngravalloPatrizia Taddia
Oct 16, 2015·Palliative & Supportive Care·Leigh Murray, Phyllis N Butow