Policies on end-of-life decision-making in Dutch health care institutions

Background

 In 1994, 69% of the Dutch hospitals, 74% of the nursing homes, 13% of the psychiatric hospitals and 16% of the institutions for the mentally disabled had a written position on euthansia. Since 1994, there were several developments in the field of end-of-life decisions, such as the Euthanasia Act coming into effect in 2002 and growing attention for palliative sedation that might influence policy making. Therefore, we started a study on policies on end-of-life decisions in Dutch health care institutions in 2005.