The very definition of hospice being a type of care that is palliative in nature provides a strong impetus against the use of any type of aggressive treatment for one who is considered terminally ill. Be that as it may, patients are still autonomous and able to choose to have CPR at the moment of death. Unfortunately, some nurses, yes, even hospice nurses believe that the patient is making the wrong choice and wish to influence that decision by making their own wishes paramount.
What drives a hospice nurse to want to behave in an authoritative way towards their patients in making such a personal choice? I believe that the answer to that question may be reached with some qualitative research. Asking the hospice nurses themselves what would drive them to want to interfere in the choice of a patient who wants CPR may open up pathways to assist both patients and nurses in making this important end of life decision.
This study will be done with the permission of a rural hospice service. All nurses will remain anonymous. No patient information will be given during the study, the nurses will be asked to use only hypothetical situations or to give examples that they have encountered with real patients who remain anonymous. If real patient information is used for research purposes, age and sex will not be given, nor will diagnosis be given. The patients used for example in research should be hospice patients who choose to have CPR.
Qualitative information given by nurses will be used for narrative case studies and to deign the reasons a hospice nurse might try to persuade a hospice patient not to choose CPR. This study will not deign to decide the ethics of a patient choosing to have CPR, but may posit reasons that nurses should or should not ethically interfere with such decisions.
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