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Euthanasia for people with psychiatric disorders or dementia in Belgium: analysis of officially reported cases

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Psychiatry, June 2017
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  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (93rd percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (92nd percentile)

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2 blogs
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4 Wikipedia pages

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160 Mendeley
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Title
Euthanasia for people with psychiatric disorders or dementia in Belgium: analysis of officially reported cases
Published in
BMC Psychiatry, June 2017
DOI 10.1186/s12888-017-1369-0
Pubmed ID
Authors

Sigrid Dierickx, Luc Deliens, Joachim Cohen, Kenneth Chambaere

Abstract

Euthanasia for people who are not terminally ill, such as those suffering from psychiatric disorders or dementia, is legal in Belgium under strict conditions but remains a controversial practice. As yet, the prevalence of euthanasia for people with psychiatric disorders or dementia has not been studied and little is known about the characteristics of the practice. This study aims to report on the trends in prevalence and number of euthanasia cases with a psychiatric disorder or dementia diagnosis in Belgium and demographic, clinical and decision-making characteristics of these cases. We analysed the anonymous databases of euthanasia cases reported to the Federal Control and Evaluation Committee Euthanasia from the implementation of the euthanasia law in Belgium in 2002 until the end of 2013. The databases we received provided the information on all euthanasia cases as registered by the Committee from the official registration forms. Only those with one or more psychiatric disorders or dementia and no physical disease were included in the analysis. We identified 179 reported euthanasia cases with a psychiatric disorder or dementia as the sole diagnosis. These consisted of mood disorders (N = 83), dementia (N = 62), other psychiatric disorders (N = 22) and mood disorders accompanied by another psychiatric disorder (N = 12). The proportion of euthanasia cases with a psychiatric disorder or dementia diagnosis was 0.5% of all cases reported in the period 2002-2007, increasing from 2008 onwards to 3.0% of all cases reported in 2013. The increase in the absolute number of cases is particularly evident in cases with a mood disorder diagnosis. The majority of cases concerned women (58.1% in dementia to 77.1% in mood disorders). All cases were judged to have met the legal requirements by the Committee. While euthanasia on the grounds of unbearable suffering caused by a psychiatric disorder or dementia remains a comparatively limited practice in Belgium, its prevalence has risen since 2008. If, as this study suggests, people with psychiatric conditions or dementia are increasingly seeking access to euthanasia, the development of practice guidelines is all the more desirable if physicians are to respond adequately to these highly delicate requests.

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X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 36 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 160 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 160 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 34 21%
Student > Master 17 11%
Student > Ph. D. Student 16 10%
Researcher 11 7%
Student > Doctoral Student 10 6%
Other 27 17%
Unknown 45 28%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 37 23%
Psychology 20 13%
Nursing and Health Professions 17 11%
Social Sciences 9 6%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 6 4%
Other 22 14%
Unknown 49 31%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 42. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 01 October 2023.
All research outputs
#999,477
of 25,589,756 outputs
Outputs from BMC Psychiatry
#276
of 5,491 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#20,323
of 329,839 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Psychiatry
#10
of 118 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,589,756 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 5,491 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.3. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 329,839 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 118 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.