ICU sedation, delirium & recovery
Intractable conflicts over end-of-life decisions: A descriptive and ethical analysis of French case-law
Study context
- Population
- Cases of emergency recourse to the judge over life-sustaining treatment (LST) limitation decisions in France, 2005–2022
- Participants
- 76 court cases
- Outcome
- Outcome of judicial investigation of contested LST limitation decisions
Methodological detailsdescriptive and qualitative analysis
- Descriptive and qualitative analysis
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Outcome of court cases
Medical decision upheld
29 cases
38%
Medical decision over-ruled
20 cases
26%
Settled out of court
13 cases
17%
Patient died before end of investigation
14 patients
18%
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Characteristics of contested decisions
- Decisions to withdraw treatment
- 78%
- Patients with neurological injury
- 76%
- Number of cases increasing over the years
Judicial assessment and qualitative analysis
- Judge assessed compliance with legal decision-making process, then inappropriateness of treatments using medical and non-medical criteria
- Opposing moral values and principles of family members and physicians
Original publication
Intractable conflicts over end-of-life decisions: A descriptive and ethical analysis of French case-law. Anaesth Crit Care Pain Med. Published 31 December 2024. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →