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. 2014 Jan 21;5(1):e0003.
doi: 10.5041/RMMJ.10137. eCollection 2014 Jan.

End-of-Life Practices in the Intensive Care Unit: The Importance of Geography, Religion, Religious Affiliation, and Culture

Marc Romain  1 , Charles L Sprung  1
Affiliations

End-of-Life Practices in the Intensive Care Unit: The Importance of Geography, Religion, Religious Affiliation, and Culture

Marc Romain et al. Rambam Maimonides Med J. .

Abstract

End-of-life decisions are made daily in intensive care units worldwide. There are numerous factors affecting these decisions, including geographical location as well as religion and attitudes of caregivers, patients, and families. There is a spectrum of end-of-life care options from full continued care, withholding treatment, withdrawing treatment, and active life-ending procedures.

Keywords: Attitude; end-of-life care; geography; religion; withdrawing; withholding.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Spectrum of End-of-Life Decisions. The figure shows the spectrum of end-of-life decisions from full care to withholding treatment, to withdrawing treatment, to active life-ending procedures.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Probability of Death over Time for Withholding or Withdrawing Treatment or Active Shortening of Dying Process (SDP). The probability of death is higher and the time to death shorter with SDP than withdrawing and withholding treatment. Adapted with kind permission from JAMA, End of life practices in European intensive care units—the Ethicus Study, Volume 290, 2003, Page 794, Figure, Sprung CL, Cohen SL, Sjokvist P, et al. Ethicus Study Group. Copyright © 2003 American Medical Association. All right reserved.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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