Intentional sedation as a means to ease suffering : a systematically constructed terminology for sedation in palliative care

Abstract

Background: Terminology concerning sedation in palliative care is heterogeneous, vague, and difficult to apply with negative impact on the reliability of quantitative data, practice, and ethical discourse.

Design: To clarify the concept, we systematically developed definitions of core terms in an interdisciplinary research group comprising palliative care, ethics, law, and philosophy, integrating feedback from external experts.

Results: We define terms stepwise, separating matters of terminology (What is the practice?) from matters of good practice (How to use it?). We start with an operational definition of “reduced level of consciousness” (score < 0 on the Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale modified for palliative care inpatients (RASS-PAL), followed by defining “sedating,” “sedation,” and “intentional sedation” as the result or process of sedating a patient as a means of achieving a previously defined treatment goal and the terms “light,” “deep,” “temporary,” and “sedation until death.”

Conclusion: The terminology facilitates the precise phrasing of aims, indications, and rules for good practice. Empirical research on acceptance and feasibility is needed.