Ethical Deliberation in the Intensive Care Unit, Impact of Formalized Multidisciplinary Team Meetings, a Pilot Study

Most patients who die in the intensive care unit do so after a withholding or withdrawing of life sustaining treatments (WWLST) decision. Because those decisions are value-laden, guidelines as well as french regulations recommend that they should involve not only medical doctors but also nurses. Despite that, nurses' involvement remains incomplete. Poor collaboration between doctors and nurses on ethical decisions is associated with job dissatisfaction, burnout and desire to quit. The implementation of formalized interdisciplinary team meetings for ethical deliberation in the ICU may improve nurses participation in WWLST decisions.

For those reasons the investigators decided to implement such team meetings in their ICU. At this occasion, the investigators will measure job satisfaction, job related frustration and ethical decision making climate climate.