Citation

Batzler YN, Schallenburger M, Schwartz J, Neukirchen M. Gynakologie 2022; 55(11): 830-836.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022)

DOI

10.1007/s00129-022-05002-8

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A notable percentage of patients with a life-limiting disease express a wish to die. These wishes should be discussed and dealt with in a structured manner. This includes providing patients with information regarding existing possibilities in palliative symptom management, information about suicide prevention, a psychiatric examination to determine the possibility of depression and the capacity to consent and, if desired, social, spiritual and psychological counselling. Nonetheless, a patient's wish to die may persist. One way in which a patient may end their life is by voluntarily choosing to stop eating and drinking (VSED). However, this process may cause an enormous burden of symptoms on the patient, such as thirst and delirium. Therefore, VSED should only be performed if palliatively trained medical teams are available. It is important to note that team members may experience moral distress while accompanying a patient in this process. To protect them, team members should attend a discussion with a trained ethics committee and engage in repeated case discussions within the team itself. In addition, case supervision should take place to strengthen resilience in the team. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature.

Language: de

Keywords

human; Depression; Review; primary prevention; depression; Psychological distress; medical ethics; eating disorder; drinking behavior; distress syndrome; patient care; palliative therapy; mental stress; attitude to death; social care; delirium; managed care; symptom; medical information; personal experience; spiritual care; thirst; ethical dilemma; loss of appetite; disease burden; Attitude to death; psychological resilience; psychological counseling; Symptom management; voluntarily choosing stop eating and drinking