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Voluntary stopping of eating and drinking (VSED) as an unknown challenge in a long-term care institution: an embedded single case study

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Nursing, September 2018
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (83rd percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (77th percentile)

Mentioned by

blogs
1 blog
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6 X users
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1 Facebook page

Citations

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22 Dimensions

Readers on

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115 Mendeley
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Title
Voluntary stopping of eating and drinking (VSED) as an unknown challenge in a long-term care institution: an embedded single case study
Published in
BMC Nursing, September 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12912-018-0309-8
Pubmed ID
Authors

Nadine Saladin, Wilfried Schnepp, André Fringer

Abstract

Chronically ill persons experience conditions of life that can become unbearable, resulting in the wish to end their life prematurely. Relatives confronted with this wish experience ambivalence between loyalty to the person's desire to die and the fear of losing this person. Caring for a person during the premature dying process can be morally challenging for nurses. One way to end one's life prematurely is Voluntary Stopping of Eating and Drinking (VSED). This embedded single case study explored the experiences of registered nurses (embedded units of analysis: ward manager, nursing manager, nursing expert) and relatives who accompanied a 49-year-old woman suffering from multiple sclerosis during VSED in a Swiss long-term care institution (main unit of analysis). By means of a within-analysis, we performed an in-depth analysis of every embedded unit of analysis and elaborated a central phenomenon for each unit. Afterwards, we searched for common patterns in a cross-analysis of the embedded units of analysis in order to develop a central model. The following central concept emerged from cross-analysis of the embedded units of analysis: As a way of ending one's life prematurely, VSED represents an unfamiliar challenge to nurses and relatives in the field of tension between one's personal attitude and the agents' concerns, fears and uncertainties. Particularly significant is the personal attitude, influenced on the one hand by one's own experiences, prior knowledge, role and faith, on the other hand by the VSED-performing person's age, disease and deliberate communication of the decision. Depending on the intention of VSED as either suicide or natural dying, an accepting or dismissing attitude evolves on an institutional and personal level. To deal professionally with VSED in an institution, it is necessary to develop an attitude on the institutional and personal level. Educational measures and quality controls are required to ensure that VSED systematically becomes an option to hasten death. As VSED is a complex phenomenon, it is necessary to include palliative care in practice development early on and comprehensively. There is a high need of further research on this topic. Particularly, qualitative studies and hypothesis-testing approaches are required.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 6 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 115 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 115 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 15 13%
Student > Master 13 11%
Student > Doctoral Student 11 10%
Student > Ph. D. Student 8 7%
Researcher 6 5%
Other 16 14%
Unknown 46 40%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Nursing and Health Professions 34 30%
Medicine and Dentistry 12 10%
Psychology 6 5%
Social Sciences 5 4%
Economics, Econometrics and Finance 3 3%
Other 7 6%
Unknown 48 42%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 12. 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 28 February 2019.
All research outputs
#2,951,346
of 25,014,758 outputs
Outputs from BMC Nursing
#82
of 923 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#57,118
of 341,230 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Nursing
#3
of 9 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,014,758 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 88th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 923 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 5.2. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% 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 341,230 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 83% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 9 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than 6 of them.