Exploring Legal and Ethical Strategies in Assisted Suicide Cases

This essay delves into the complex issues surrounding assisted suicide, examining decision-making models for nurses in mental healthcare settings and exploring legal and ethical intervention strategies. It discusses the analytic and intuitive approaches to decision-making in nursing practice, emphasizing the importance of both scientific evidence and ethical considerations. Furthermore, the essay addresses the legal aspects of euthanasia and assisted suicide, highlighting the need for informed consent and mandatory reporting. It also emphasizes the ethical principles of beneficence and fidelity, which guide nursing professionals in providing accurate information and support to patients facing end-of-life decisions. The essay references relevant literature to support its arguments and provide a comprehensive overview of the topic.

Running head: ASSISTED SUICIDE
Assisted Suicide
Name of the student
University name
Author’s note

1
ASSISTED SUICIDE
Table of Contents
Decision making model for nurses in mental healthcare setup..................................................2
Legal ethical intervention strategies...........................................................................................2
References..................................................................................................................................4

2
ASSISTED SUICIDE
Decision making model for nurses in mental healthcare setup
The decision making in nursing practice could be explained with the help of three
different approaches such as – the analytic approach also called the hypothetico-deductive
approach; the intuitive approach also known as the intuitive-humanist model and the last
approach which combines both the analytic and intuitive approach.
The analytical approach follows a structured approach to decision making supported
by scientific reasons (Couët et al., 2015). It is based upon the gathering of clinical evidence,
generation of hypothesis, interpretation of the clinical evidences leading to hypothesis
generation.
The intuitive approach is described as a gut feeling, where decision making is
influenced by ethics, beliefs and values of the nursing professionals. The internalized
information is formed over here from both personal and professional experiences of the
nurses. Recent clinical sciences have emphasised up to the use of both scientific evidences
and intuitions for effective decision making.
Legal ethical intervention strategies
Euthanasia or assisted suicide has been legalized in a small number of countries. As
suggested by Paterson (2017), there are high chances that the rights to euthanasia may be
used in a wrong way, which could engender the life of a patient. Some of the legal strategies
which could be implemented over here are taking written consent from the patient or their
respective family members. The nursing professionals should focus upon mandatory
reporting of the Euthanasia cases to Federal Control and Evaluation Committee.

3
ASSISTED SUICIDE
The physician assisted suicide plays sufficient importance upon ethical principles for
helping people make effective decisions. The ethical principle of beneficence could be used
by the nursing professional to advice the patient regrading the good and bad. The ethical
principle of fidelity states that the nursing professional should provide correct and authentic
knowledge to the dying patient regarding the status of their health, as per the right to
informed decision making (De Lima et al., 2017).

4
ASSISTED SUICIDE
References
Couët, N., Desroches, S., Robitaille, H., Vaillancourt, H., Leblanc, A., Turcotte, S., ... &
Légaré, F. (2015). Assessments of the extent to which health‐care providers involve
patients in decision making: a systematic review of studies using the OPTION
instrument. Health Expectations, 18(4), 542-561.
De Lima, L., Woodruff, R., Pettus, K., Downing, J., Buitrago, R., Munyoro, E., ... &
Radbruch, L. (2017). International association for hospice and palliative care position
statement: Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Journal of palliative
medicine, 20(1), 8-14.
Paterson, C. (2017). Assisted suicide and euthanasia: a natural law ethics approach.
Abingdon: Routledge, 124-155.