TY - JOUR
T1 - Life support decisions for children
T2 - What do parents value?
AU - Kirschbaum, Mark Stephen
PY - 1996/9
Y1 - 1996/9
N2 - This investigation answered the question, What meaning do parents give to the decision to authorize or to withdraw or forgo authorization of life-sustaining treatment for a child? Using an exploratory design, the author interviewed 20 families who had faced this decision in the prior 6 to 12 months. From content analysis, parents' essential meaning was experienced through their sense of self, their being, and an ethic of responsibility. Parents' decisions reflected values regarding the eight key themes of life, pain and suffering, quality of life, not self, respect for person or best interest, family, faith and nature, and technology.
AB - This investigation answered the question, What meaning do parents give to the decision to authorize or to withdraw or forgo authorization of life-sustaining treatment for a child? Using an exploratory design, the author interviewed 20 families who had faced this decision in the prior 6 to 12 months. From content analysis, parents' essential meaning was experienced through their sense of self, their being, and an ethic of responsibility. Parents' decisions reflected values regarding the eight key themes of life, pain and suffering, quality of life, not self, respect for person or best interest, family, faith and nature, and technology.
KW - Ethics
KW - Life support withdrawal
KW - Parents
KW - Phenomenology
KW - Values
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0030229579&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1097/00012272-199609000-00007
DO - 10.1097/00012272-199609000-00007
M3 - Article
C2 - 8866000
AN - SCOPUS:0030229579
SN - 0161-9268
VL - 19
SP - 51
EP - 71
JO - Advances in Nursing Science
JF - Advances in Nursing Science
IS - 1
ER -