General hospital psychiatry
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Gen Hosp Psychiatry · Nov 2004
Belief in an afterlife, spiritual well-being and end-of-life despair in patients with advanced cancer.
Despite the plethora of research linking spirituality, religiosity and psychological well-being among people living with medical illnesses, the role of afterlife beliefs on psychological functioning has been virtually ignored. The present investigation assessed afterlife beliefs, spiritual well-being and psychological functioning at the end of life among 276 terminally ill cancer patients. ⋯ The authors concluded that spirituality has a much more powerful effect on psychological functioning than beliefs held about an afterlife. Treatment implications are discussed.
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Gen Hosp Psychiatry · Nov 2004
Case ReportsWhen agreeing with the patient is not enough: a schizophrenic woman requests pregnancy termination.
In this article, we discuss the ethical dilemma health care providers faced when Rebecca, a pregnant schizophrenic patient who lacked decision-making capacity, inconsistently requested elective pregnancy termination. When a patient's decision-making capacity is severely impaired, how does the physician balance obligations to protect the patient from harm (beneficence) while also respecting her reproductive preferences and decisions (respect for autonomy)? Rebecca suffers from polysubstance abuse and paranoid schizophrenia characterized by disorganized thought and speech, auditory hallucinations, and delusional ideas. She arrived 14+ weeks pregnant and unaccompanied at an obstetric clinic requesting an abortion. ⋯ She delivered a term baby who was soon removed from her custody. Despite some people's desire to protect Rebecca by complying with her request for abortion, we conclude that to do so would be ethically unjustified. To treat a decisionally impaired patient's requests for abortion as autonomous is disrespectful of the vulnerable patient because such paternalism fails to respect the patient's liberty and the surrogate's authority.