• Joris Gielen, Harmala Gupta, Ambika Rajvanshi, Sushma Bhatnagar, Seema Mishra, Arvind K Chaturvedi, Stef Van den Branden, and Bert Broeckaert.
• Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Religion and World View (Catholic University Leuven), Sint-Michielsstraat 4 - Bus 3101, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
• Indian J Palliat Care. 2011 Jan 1;17(1):33-41.

AimWe wanted to assess Indian palliative-care nurses and physicians' attitudes toward pain control and palliative sedation.Materials And MethodsFrom May to September 2008, we interviewed 14 physicians and 13 nurses working in different palliative-care programs in New Delhi, using a semi-structured questionnaire, and following grounded-theory methodology (Glaser and Strauss).ResultsThe interviewees did not consider administration of painkillers in large doses an ethical problem, provided the pain killers are properly titrated. Mild palliative sedation was considered acceptable. The interviewees disagreed whether palliative sedation can also be deep and continuous. Arguments mentioned against deep continuous palliative sedation were the conviction that it may cause unacceptable side effects, and impedes basic daily activities and social contacts. A few interviewees said that palliative sedation may hasten death.ConclusionDue to fears and doubts regarding deep continuous palliative sedation, it may sometimes be too easily discarded as a treatment option for refractory symptoms.

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