Abstract

WANDEN-BERGHE, C.; GUARDIOLA-WANDEN-BERGHE, R.; SANZ-VALERO, J.  and  RED DE MALNUTRICION EN IBEROAMERICA. Population wills about the decisions and cares at the end of life. Nutr. Hosp. [online]. 2009, vol.24, n.6, pp.732-737. ISSN 1699-5198.

Objective: To know the wishes and willings of the general population at the end of life under the assumption of suffering a terminal disease. Method: Crosswise quanti-qualitative study. An opinion poll has been made under the assumption of suffering a terminal disease with 10 questions about the wishes of the population at the end of life Descriptive techniques have been used as well as χ² Pearson, χ² Fisher and Student's T tests for the analysis. Also, analysis of the comments contents techniques have been used. Results: 403 polls have been analyzed with an age mean of 38.2 years. 63.8% of the people prefer to end their life at home IC 95%, [59.1%-68.5%]. The majority prefer their partners as care giver 43.4% IC 95% [38.6-48.3]. The 85.9% IC 95% [82.5-89.3] would not wish to be undergone to either resuscitation maneuvers or other ways to extend their lifes to the maximum. The 49.4% IC 95% [44.5-54.3] would want to receive special nutritional support. Conclusions: It was observed that the oldest population refuses to talk about their own death. The vast majority of the polled people would want to die at home with their partner's cares. Half of the people want to be feed artificially until the end of their days.

Keywords : Ethic; Decision making; Life support care; Living wills.

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