Ethical Issues in Palliative Care and at End of Life
A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 November 2021) | Viewed by 585
Special Issue Editor
2. Our Lady’s Hospice & Care Services, Harold’s Cross, D6W RY72 Dublin, Ireland
Interests: palliative care; spirituality
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The World Health Organisation defines palliative care as an approach that improves quality of life for patients and their families who are faced with the problems associated with living with a life-limiting condition. Palliative care focuses on the relief of suffering through the assessment and management of complex symptoms that can be physical, psychological, social or spiritual. The relief of such suffering requires attention to person-centred care, where the patient and their family are involved and are part of all decisions regarding their health. This must also include the patient’s wishes and preferences for care and treatment at all times.
The provision of palliative care requires the interdisciplinary team to be ethical in their thinking and approach to care planning and decision-making, including planning for the end of life. This ethical thinking must focus on the patient as an individual but also part of a family, be that the biological or chosen family, who are quite often relied on more and more as the disease advances and the end of life is imminent.
Access to palliative care, including end-of-life care, has been identified as a human right (Brennan, 2007), and irrespective of diagnosis, prognosis, geographic location, gender, sexual orientation and civil status, patients and their families have a right to ethically based palliative care, which incorporates individual needs and includes a consideration of the wishes and preferences for care, including the place of care.
This Special Issue will explore ethical issues in palliative care and at the end of life, examining the key ethical issues that arise for patients and their families in receipt of palliative and end-of-life care. This issue will also explore some of the ethical issues that arise for health and social care professionals who provide palliative and end-of-life care.
Articles for this issue may also focus on ethical issues that arise for patients and their families from diverse and varying cultural and ethnic backgrounds, which may influence health-related decision-making. Articles focusing on the provision of palliative and end-of-life care to marginalised groups including members of the Traveller and Roma communities, asylum seekers and those living and dying in areas of conflict, and members of the LGBTQ+ community would also be of interest for this issue.
Through these explorations, this Special Issue will draw attention to, and deepen our understanding of, the ethical issues that arise in palliative and end-of-life care.
Dr. Michael Connolly
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- palliative care
- ethical issues
- end-of-life
- decisions
- culture
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