Regulation and legislation of the dying process: Views of health care professionals

Because of radical changes that have been effected by medical advances in the process of dying, it is now frequently necessary for patients to make an explicit decision on whether to forego life-prolonging medical therapies. We report physicians' and nurses' perceptions of the need for, feasibility of, and value of regulations and legislation to govern the dying process. In-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with a sample of 20 …