Ethical challenges in palliative and end-of-life care: Decision-making processes under uncertainty, risk, and asymmetry of information

Description

The expression “ethical challenges” is commonly used in clinical practice, particularly in palliative and end-of-life care. Nevertheless, despite its ubiquity, there is no consensualized definition and various expressions are used interchangeably; for instance: “ethical challenges”, “ethical problems”, “ethical issues”, “ethical dilemmas”. Without a clear definition of what an “ethical challenge” means, both researchers and clinicians might use individual judgements to ascertain whether they have identified a situation of an “ethical challenge” within their research and/or clinical practice. This situation risks generating misleading ethical analyses, evaluations, or recommendations.

In addition, “ethical challenges” in palliative and end-of-life care are commonly associated to the necessity to make complex and difficult decisions in end-of-life situations. The latter is understood as situations in which a severe deterioration in health, due to the evolution of a disease or another cause, threatens the life of a person irreversibly in the near future, posing the need to make an ethico-clinical decision. There is a wide range of “ethical challenges” in palliative and end-of-life care. Frequently, these require healthcare professionals and teams, as well as patients and family members, to embrace ethico-clinical decision-making processes under uncertainty, risk, and asymmetry of information.

Throughout this presentation, we will explore and discuss the structure and processes that can enhance ethico-clinical decision-making processes and their effectiveness in palliative and end-of-life care. Based on past and ongoing research, we will highlight the need to refocus on the fundamentals of palliative care to follow a shared decision-making model in order to meet patients’ values, wishes and preferences.

Period	22 Oct 2022
Event title	XXIII National Congress of the Romenian Association for Palliative Care (ANIP)
Event type	Conference
Location	Poiana-Brasov, RomaniaShow on map