Navigating Communication in Nursing Homes During COVID-19: Perspectives From Families, Healthcare Professionals, and Managers in Southern Switzerland-A Qualitative Study.

Objectives: This study aims to understand the effectiveness and challenges of communication strategies implemented to maintain contact between nursing home (NH) residents and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic, by considering the perspectives of families, healthcare professionals, and NH managers.

Methods: Using a qualitative research design, the study analyzed in-depth semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders (N = 34), including family members, NH staff, and managers.

Results: The study found that communication strategies like video calls, telephone calls, and window visits were generally appreciated and facilitated contact between residents and their families.

Physician-reported characteristics, representations, and ethical justifications of shared decision-making practices in the care of paediatric patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness.

Background: Despite consensus about the importance of implementing shared decision-making (SDM) in clinical practice, this ideal is inconsistently enacted today. Evidence shows that SDM practices differ in the degree of involvement of patients or family members, or in the amount of medical information disclosed to patients in order to "share" meaningfully in treatment decisions. Little is known on which representations and moral justifications physicians hold when realizing SDM.

Physicians' decision-making when managing pediatric patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness: A qualitative study.

Background And Purpose: Advances in medicine have resulted in treatments that can extend the survival of patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness (PDOC) for several years. However, several diagnostic and prognostic uncertainties remain, particularly in the care of pediatric patients. In the absence of international guidelines, we aimed to explore physicians' decision-making when managing pediatric patients with PDOC.

Physicians' Acceptance of Triage Guidelines in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study.

One of the major ethical challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic comes in the form of fair triage decisions for critically ill patients in situations where life-saving resources are limited. In Spring 2020, the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (SAMS) issued specific guidelines on triage for intensive-care treatment in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. While evidence has shown that the capacities of intensive care medicine throughout Switzerland were sufficient to take care of all critically ill patients during the first wave of the outbreak, no evidence is available regarding the acceptance of these guidelines by ICU staff.