Ethics in neonatology: a look over Europe

Hercilia Guimarães*, Gustavo Rocha, Filipe Almeda, Marta Brites, Johannes B. van Goudoever, Francesca Iacoponi, Carlo Bellieni, Giuseppe Buonocore

*Autor correspondente para este trabalho

    Resultado de pesquisarevisão de pares

    15 Citações (Scopus)

    Resumo

    Advances in perinatal medicine have dramatically improved neonatal survival. End-of-life decision making for newborns with adverse prognosis is an ethical challenge, the ethical issues are controversial and little evidence exists on attitudes and values in Europe. Objective: to assess the attitudes of the neonatal departments in perinatal clinical practice in the hospitals of European countries. Methods: a questionnaire was send to 55 NICUs from 19 European countries Results: Forty five (81.8%) NICUs were Level III. Religion was Christian in 90.7% and we observed that in north countries the religion is more influent on clinical decisions (p = 0.032). Gestational age was considered with no significant difference for clinical investment. North countries consider birth weight (p = 0.011) and birth weight plus gestational age (p = 0.024) important for clinical investment. In north countries ethical questions should not prevail when the decision is made (p = 0.049) and from an ethical point of view, there is no difference between withdraw a treatment and do not initiate the treatment (p = 0.029). More hospitals in south countries administer any analgesia (p = 0.007). When the resuscitation is not successful 96.2% provide comfort care. Conclusion: Our study reveals that cultural and religious differences influenced ethical attitudes in NICUs of the European countries.
    Idioma originalEnglish
    Páginas (de-até)984-991
    Número de páginas8
    RevistaJournal of Maternal-Fetal and Neonatal Medicine
    Volume25
    Número de emissão7
    DOIs
    Estado da publicaçãoPublicado - jul. 2012

    Impressão digital

    Mergulhe nos tópicos de investigação de “Ethics in neonatology: a look over Europe“. Em conjunto formam uma impressão digital única.

    Citação