• B van Oorschot and A Simon.
• Klinik für Radiologie, Abt Strahlentherapie, Universitätsklinikum Jena, Jena, Germany. birgitt.oorschot@med.uni-jena.de
• J Med Ethics. 2006 Nov 1; 32 (11): 623-6.

ObjectivesTo analyse and compare the surveys on German doctors and judges on end of life decision making regarding their attitudes on the advance directive and on the dying process.DesignThe respondents were to indicate their agreement or disagreement to eight statements on the advance directive and to specify their personal view on the beginning of the dying process.Participants727 doctors (anaesthetists or intensive-care physicians, internal specialists and general practitioners) in three federal states and 469 judges dealing with guardianship matters all over Germany.Main MeasurementsComparisons of means, analyses of variance, pivot tables (chi(2) test) and factor analyses (varimax with Kaiser normalisation).ResultsThree attitude groups on advance directive were disclosed by the analysis: the decision model, which emphasises the binding character of a situational advance directive; the deliberation model, which puts more emphasis on the communicative aspect; and the delegation model, which regards the advance directive as a legal instrument. The answers regarding the beginning of the dying process were broadly distributed, but no marked difference was observed between the responding professions. The dying process was assumed by most participants to begin with a life expectancy of only a few days.ConclusionsA high degree of valuation for advance directive was seen in both German doctors and judges; most agreed to the binding character of the situational directive. Regarding the different individual concepts of the dying process, a cross-professional discourse on the contents of this term seems to be overdue.

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