A study shows that there is a reduction in non-beneficial treatments for dying patients if healthcare providers and family members receive ethics counseling.

Many medical procedures carried out during terminal care raise ethical issues. Is it right, for instance, to continue with mechanical ventilation when there is little hope of the patient's survival?

A team at the University of California, San Diego, have been looking at what happens if people are offered ethics counseling in such situations. The study covered 551 patients where treatment issues towards the end of life raised ethical issues. They, their family, and healthcare providers were assigned to either ethical counseling or no counseling.

Those who did receive counseling were less likely to receive life-sustaining treatments and spent fewer days in hospital and in the intensive care unit. But there was no difference in overall mortality between the two groups. And nearly nine out of ten of those who received the counseling considered it to be very helpful in helping resolve treatment conflicts.

Source

Journal of the American Medical Association 3rd September 2003