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Mental Health and Social Care Providers Facing Requests of Assisted suicide from Elderly in Nursing Homes in Switzerland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2020

D.A. Castelli Dransart ,
S. Voélin  and
S. Elena
D.A. Castelli Dransart
Affiliation:
University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland- School of Social Work Fribourg, Research and Development, Givisiez, Switzerland
S. Voélin
Affiliation:
University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland- School of Social Work Geneva, Research, Geneva, Switzerland
S. Elena
Affiliation:
University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland- School of Social Work Fribourg, Research and Development, Givisiez, Switzerland

Abstract

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Introduction

In some Swiss states, right-to-die associations are allowed to assist older people in nursing homes provided that certain requirements are fulfilled.

Objectives

To investigate how health and social care providers and their institutions reacted to and dealt with requests of assisted suicide.

Method

An exploratory qualitative study was carried out in the States of Fribourg and Vaud among 40 professionals working in nursing homes, home care services or social welfare agencies.

Results

The requests of assisted suicide questioned the professional mission, the quality of accompaniment provided to the older people and both professional and personal values. Health and social care providers were required to ponder over ethical dilemmas or decisions. Several challenges were reported, such as: taking into account and articulating personal freedom or needs with collective functioning or organizational constraints before, during and after the assisted suicide; reconciliating self-determination with protection towards vulnerable people (beneficere, non maleficere).

Conclusions

Assisted suicide challenges and changes professional end-of-life practices. Education and support should be provided to health and social care providers faced with it.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Type
Symposium: Assisted suicide: An issue for old age psychiatry?
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 41 , Issue S1: Abstract of the 25th European Congress of Psychiatry , April 2017 , pp. S11 - S12
Copyright
Copyright © European Psychiatric Association 2017
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