الفهرس 
RELIGIOUS METHEDOLOGIESOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Objective: Medical care for the dying or terminally ill patients by families and health care professionals is a challenging task especially when religious values, practices, and beliefs influence treatment decisions for those patients. Recent research has shown that the religious affiliation of both physicians and patients markedly influences end- of- life decisions in the intensive care unit in the entire world. The world’s major religions’ standings on withholding and withdrawing of therapy, on hastening of the death process when providing pain relief and on euthanasia are described. Religious perspectives on advance directives, nutrition and hydration, do not resuscitate/do not intubate (DNR/DNI), and extubation are often unfamiliar to the medical community. This review also discusses the influence of religion on practice of medical staff and family perception.
Design: The review is based on literature research and perspectives of ethicists in countries where religious rulings do influence secular law.
Results: Not all religions have distinct rulings on all the above-mentioned issues, but it is pointed out that all religions will probably have to develop rulings on these questions. The importance of patient autonomy in the Western world is not necessarily an issue among other ethnic and religious groups, and guidelines are presented with methods to uncover and deal with different ethnic and religious views.
Conclusion: Many religious groupings are now spread world-wide (most notably Muslims), and with increasing globalization it is important that health-care systems take into account the religious beliefs of a wide variety of ethnic and religious groups when contemplating end-of-life decisions.