Objective:

Considering brain death as legal death plays an important role in both provision of organ transplants and cessation of medical support. Another aspect of this issue is to decide who will have authorization for cessation of medical support. In this study, medical, legal and ethical aspects of the issue were dealt with data collected through a questionnaire.

Material and Methods:

Volunteering 279 nurses and 179 doctors working in intensive care units of research and education hospitals in Istanbul completed the questionnaire. Obtained data were statistically analyzed and available regulations, medical requirements and ethical values regarding brain death were examined based on results of the analyses.

Results:

Of all the participants, 40.9% of the nurses and 5.6% of the doctors agreed that diagnosis of brain death should allow cessation of medical support. Forty-three percent of the nurses and 55.9% of the doctors thought that patients whose brain death has occurred should be withdrawn from life support systems and devices so that other patients in need can benefit from them, with a significant difference (p<0.01). Fifty-two percent of the nurses and 36.7% of the doctors found it right to let relatives of patients decide cessation of life support, with a significant difference (p<0.01).

Conclusion:

It is important that legal problems concerning decisions about and authorization for cessation of medical support given to patients whose brain death has occurred should be solved so that uncertainties experienced in practice can be eradicated.

Keywords: Brain death, organ donation, withdrawing treatment