1 40 1 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Citation List Month Backlog URL Address <a href="http://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.091881" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">http://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.091881</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The role of nurses in physician-assisted deaths in Belgium Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Canadian Medical Association Journal Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 Subject The topic of the resource Female; Humans; Male; Young Adult; Adult; Data Collection; Logistic Models; Questionnaires; Middle Aged; Euthanasia; Nurse's Role; Confidence Intervals; Odds Ratio; Suicide; Belgium; decision making; Active; home care services; Assisted/statistics & numerical data; Voluntary/statistics & numerical data; Active/statistics & numerical data; Terminal Care/methods/statistics & numerical data Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Inghelbrecht E; Bilsen J; Mortier F; Deliens L Description An account of the resource BACKGROUND: Belgium's law on euthanasia allows only physicians to perform the act. We investigated the involvement of nurses in the decision-making and in the preparation and administration of life-ending drugs with a patient's explicit request (euthanasia) or without an explicit request. We also examined factors associated with these deaths. METHODS: In 2007, we surveyed 1678 nurses who, in an earlier survey, had reported caring for one or more patients who received a potential life-ending decision within the year before the survey. Eligible nurses were surveyed about their most recent case. RESULTS: The response rate was 76%. Overall, 128 nurses reported having cared for a patient who received euthanasia and 120 for a patient who received life-ending drugs without his or her explicit request. Respectively, 64% (75/117) and 69% (81/118) of these nurses were involved in the physician's decision-making process. More often this entailed an exchange of information on the patient's condition or the patient's or relatives' wishes (45% [34/117] and 51% [41/118]) than sharing in the decision-making (24% [18/117] and 31% [25/118]). The life-ending drugs were administered by the nurse in 12% of the cases of euthanasia, as compared with 45% of the cases of assisted death without an explicit request. In both types of assisted death, the nurses acted on the physician's orders but mostly in the physician's absence. Factors significantly associated with a nurse administering the life-ending drugs included being a male nurse working in a hospital (odds ratio [OR] 40.07, 95% confidence interval [CI] 7.37-217.79) and the patient being over 80 years old (OR 5.57, 95% CI 1.98-15.70). INTERPRETATION: By administering the life-ending drugs in some of the cases of euthanasia, and in almost half of the cases without an explicit request from the patient, the nurses in our study operated beyond the legal margins of their profession. 2010 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="http://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.091881" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">10.1503/cmaj.091881</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s). Type The nature or genre of the resource Journal Article 2010 Active Active/statistics & numerical data Adult Assisted/statistics & numerical data Backlog Belgium Bilsen J Canadian Medical Association Journal Confidence Intervals Data Collection Decision Making Deliens L Euthanasia Female home care services Humans Inghelbrecht E Journal Article Logistic Models Male Middle Aged Mortier F Nurse's Role Odds Ratio Questionnaires Suicide Terminal Care/methods/statistics & numerical data Voluntary/statistics & numerical data Young Adult