Opinions of registered dietitians on the withholding and withdrawing of food and fluid in the terminally ill

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the opinions of dietitians regarding the withholding and withdrawing of nutritional support in terminally ill patients. In addition, the role of the dietitian in feeding the terminally ill individual was researched.

A mailed questionnaire was sent to 414 registered dietitians employed by the Marriott Corporation with at least one year of clinical experience. Of the 414 deliverable questionnaires, 284 [69%] were returned, and the results were tabulated. Data analysis included frequency distribution.

Results indicated that the majority of the dietitians were female younger than 40 years of age with at least a Bachelor of Science degree and were married. Dietitians with experience with advance directives and living wills were more likely to agree that the terminally ill individual and not the physician nor family member had the right to make the decisions regarding his or her medical treatment. There were no statistical differences when broken down according to the different variables.

Because most dietitians have not had any formal training in ethics, education for dietitians needs to focus on ethics skills to help dietitians to effectively deal with the challenges facing dietitians pertaining to feeding the terminally ill individual.