Ethics (ETH)The purpose of the Section on Ethics is to help personnel that work in the intensive care in Europe to address ethical dilemmas and thus increase the well being of both the patients in the intensive care units and their families. We do so by promoting and performing research in ethics and arranging education.
Chair and deputy
Chair Elie Azoulay - Paris, France Deputy Colin Ferguson - Plymouth, United Kingdom
Membership
There are currently 78 voting members and 926 registered members. Please note that only the voting members of the Section may elect the chair and the deputy.
Do you wish to be one of the members of this Section or do you wish to change your Section registration? Please send an email at public@esicm.org.
Activities
The Section has started a Research group chaired by Tom Woodcock (UK) on the Definition of death. We are also engaged in how to handle the European directive on consent for research in incompetent patients. Currently the Section is engaged in three major research projects sponsored by the European Commission:
1. ETHICUS
Which studies end-of-life decisions in 37 ICUs in 17 European countries. The data collection is now completed and the first of several planned papers is published in JAMA. The Section is busy preparing further manuscripts of the ETHICUS study, the prospective, observational study of end of life practices in European ICUs.
2. ETHICATT
In which we survey former ICU patients, their family members, ICU-physicians and ICU nurses about their attitudes towards potential ethical problems in intensive care. The data collection taking place in six countries is completed and the data analysis is started. The first manuscript of the ETHICATT study, the systematic study of general ethical principles involved in end of life decisions for patients in European ICUs, is being prepared.
3. ELDICUS
The ELDICUS study is an empirical, prospective, observational study to examine triage decisions and their consequences for the elderly which is being carried out in twelve ICUs in seven European countries. Inclusion criteria include all patients more than 18 years of age, present in the investigator’s hospital whose health care professional responsible for the patient’s care explicitly requests evaluation for admission to the ICU, or who are routinely admitted to the ICU such as post-surgical patients. Exclusion criteria include patients for intensive care consultation only or admitted to other ICUs or separate intermediate (high dependency) units in the same hospital without an explicit request for an ICU bed in the investigator’s study unit. Admission decisions, demographic, clinical, hospital, laboratory and physiological variables are being obtained on consecutive patients presented for admission to ICU. Each day, the research nurse or doctor identifies all patients who have been triaged i.e. those either accepted or refused to ICU over the preceding 24 hours. An objective, standardized triage admission and discharge instrument will be developed from the data.
See also ECCRN
Publications
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- Hydrocortisone Therapy for Patients with Septic Shock - Nurse involvement in end-of-life decision making: The ETHICUS Study
- End-of-life care in the intensive care unit: the Irish ETHICUS data
Meetings agenda and minutes
Useful links
Next MeetingThe next section meeting will be held during the 30th ISICEM, March 9-12 2010, Brussels. We shall inform you of further details closer to the time. |
Remember Peter Sjokvist