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Clinicians’ Attitudes toward Patients with Disorders of Consciousness: A Survey

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Abstract

Notwithstanding fundamental methodological advancements, scientific information about disorders of consciousness (DOCs)—e.g. Vegetative State/Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome (VS/UWS) and Minimally Conscious State (MCS)—is incomplete. The possibility to discriminate between different levels of consciousness in DOC states entails treatment strategies and ethical concerns. Here we attempted to investigate Italian clinicians’ and basic scientists’ opinions regarding some issues emerging from the care and the research on patients with DOCs. From our survey emerged that Italian physicians working with patients with DOCs give a central role to ethics. Current Italian regulation regarding basic research conducted in patients with DOCs apparently risks to be inadequate to support scientific advancement, and would deserve a different assessment compared to ordinary treatments. We think the results of our survey deserve attention from an international audience because they exemplify the difficulty to define a shared approach to the issues related to patients with DOCs and the necessity to better assess both the ordinary and experimental treatment of patients with DOCs at the ethical and legal level.

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Acknowledgments

This paper has been written as a part of the project “Nosographic revision of vegetative states: application of behavioural analysis methods in the study of subjects in coma and vegetative state” granted by Italian Minister of Health and developed by Italian National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità). Special thanks to prof. Silvio Spiri for his help in the submission of the questionnaires.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biogem, Genetic Research Centre, Via Camporeale, 83031, Ariano Irpino, AV, Italy

    Michele Farisco

  2. Department of Cell Biology and Neurosciences, Section of Behavioural Neuroscience, Italian National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy

    Enrico Alleva, Flavia Chiarotti & Simone Macri

  3. Bioethics Unit, Office of the President, Italian National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy

    Carlo Petrini

Authors
  1. Michele Farisco
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  2. Enrico Alleva
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  3. Flavia Chiarotti
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  4. Simone Macri
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  5. Carlo Petrini
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michele Farisco.

Appendix I: The questionnaire

Appendix I: The questionnaire

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Farisco, M., Alleva, E., Chiarotti, F. et al. Clinicians’ Attitudes toward Patients with Disorders of Consciousness: A Survey. Neuroethics 7, 93–104 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-013-9185-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-013-9185-9

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