End of life decision-making and psychiatric illness

Clinical Center

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

This project involves both empirical and normative analyses, initially focusing on a specific subset of practices in some European settings. There are publicly available summaries of cases that some review committees deem particularly educational and therefore make accessible. One subset consists of most of those cases in which people have received assisted death for psychiatric illnesses. A normative policy analysis of the implications of legalizing euthanasia on the basis of psychiatric suffering: Kim SYH, Lemmens T. Should assisted dying for psychiatric disorders be legalized in Canada? Canadian Medical Association Journal. 2016;188(14):E337-E339. An empirical analysis of how the issue of capacity is addressed in the Dutch euthanasia oversight system: Doernberg SN, Peteet JR, Kim SY. Capacity Evaluations of Psychiatric Patients Requesting Assisted Death in the Netherlands. Psychosomatics. 2016;57(6):556-565. An invited commentary on the issue of decisional capacity when discussing whether to legalize psychiatric euthanasia: Kim SYH. Capacity Assessments as a Safeguard for Psychiatric Patients Requesting Euthanasia. Journal of Ethics in Mental Health. Open Volume. http://www.jemh.ca/issues/open/JEMH-Open-Volume.htm#MAID (Invited commentary).