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Using motivational interviewing to facilitate death talk in end-of-life care: an ethical analysis

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Palliative Care, March 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 (86th percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (67th percentile)

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1 blog
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10 X users
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1 Wikipedia page

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81 Mendeley
Title
Using motivational interviewing to facilitate death talk in end-of-life care: an ethical analysis
Published in
BMC Palliative Care, March 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12904-018-0305-5
Pubmed ID
Authors

Isra Black, Ásgeir Rúnar Helgason

Abstract

Morbidity arising from unprepared bereavement is a problem that affects close personal relations of individuals at the end-of-life. The bereavement studies literature demonstrates that a lack of preparedness for a loved one's death is a risk factor for secondary psychological morbidity among survivors. Short awareness time of death negatively correlates to preparedness for bereavement. The absence of disclosure of end-of-life diagnosis and prognosis to close personal relations ('death talk') between patients and loved ones, or health professionals and loved ones, may contribute to short awareness time of death. To increase awareness time of death, we might attempt to increase patient first-personal disclosure of end-of-life diagnosis and prognosis to loved-ones, and/or patient consent to health professional disclosure of the same. Interventions based on motivational interviewing in end-of-life care whose aim is to facilitate death talk, either by the patient directly, or by a health professional with the patient's consent, may offer a part solution to the problem of unprepared bereavement. This paper evaluates the ethical permissibility of such interventions. We consider two ethical objections to using motivational interviewing in this way: first, that it is inappropriate for practitioners to seek disclosure as an outcome in this setting; second, that aiming at disclosure risks manipulating individuals into death talk. While it need not be impermissible to direct individuals toward disclosure of end-of-life diagnosis/prognosis, the objection from manipulation implies that it is pro tanto ethically preferable to use motivational interviewing in a non-directive mode in death talk conversations. However, insofar as non-directive motivational interviewing requires more advanced skills, and thus may be more difficult to learn and to practise, we advance that it may be ethically permissible, all things considered, to employ directional, or specific outcome-oriented, motivational interviewing. Motivational interviewing interventions in end-of-life care whose aim is to facilitate death talk, either by the patient directly, or by a health professional with the patient's consent may be ethically permissible, all things considered.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 10 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 81 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 81 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 13 16%
Student > Bachelor 11 14%
Student > Ph. D. Student 9 11%
Researcher 5 6%
Unspecified 4 5%
Other 16 20%
Unknown 23 28%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 16 20%
Nursing and Health Professions 16 20%
Psychology 12 15%
Unspecified 4 5%
Social Sciences 4 5%
Other 4 5%
Unknown 25 31%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 17. 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 19 May 2023.
All research outputs
#1,971,042
of 23,796,227 outputs
Outputs from BMC Palliative Care
#191
of 1,306 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#44,219
of 333,948 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Palliative Care
#17
of 49 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,796,227 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 91st percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,306 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 9.6. This one has done well, scoring higher than 85% 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 333,948 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 86% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 49 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 67% of its contemporaries.