Incurable Ill Patients Attitudes Towards Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

Incurable Ill Patients Attitudes to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: A Prospective, Multi-Centre Trial in Palliative Care Units in Saxony

Status

Completed

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Observational

Source

ClinicalTrials.gov

Registry ID

NCT00495482

Acronym

ESPIL

Enrollment

200

Registered

2007-07-03

Start date

2006-09-30

Completion date

2010-01-31

Last updated

2012-11-14

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Incurable Cancer Diseases, Other Incurable Diseases

Keywords

Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide, Assisted Dying, Palliative Care Medicine

Brief summary

Euthanasia and assisted dying are of growing interest for patients with incurable diseases. The possible methods are widely discussed by patient-societies, physicians, lawyers, theologians and philosophers. During the last years several opinion-polls were conducted with healthy people or medical stuff, but no surveys were conducted to get the attitude of incurable ill patients. The hypothesis of the investigators' study is: Palliative Care Medicine is a better option for incurable ill patients than an assisted suicide.

Interventions

None listed

Study design

Observational model

COHORT

Time perspective

PROSPECTIVE

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

ALL

Age

18 Years to No maximum

Healthy volunteers

Inclusion criteria

* Age \>= 18 years * Incurable illness * Mental state thet allows to answer a questionnaire

Exclusion criteria

* Somnolence * Low mental state * Curable disease * Depression with danger of acute suicide

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame
Patients intention to assisted suicide	up to four weeks after beginning of palliative treatment

Countries

Germany

Outcome results