‘Terminal Anorexia’, treatment refusal and decision making capacity

Jefferson, Anneli ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1870-1361 2024. ‘Terminal Anorexia’, treatment refusal and decision making capacity. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Whether anorexic patients should be able to refuse treatment when this potentially has a fatal outcome is a vexed topic. A recent proposal for a new category of ‘terminal anorexia’ suggests criteria when a move to palliative care or even physician assisted suicide might be justified. I argue that this proposed diagnosis presents a false sense of certainty of the illness trajectory by conceptualizing anorexia in analogy with physical disorders and stressing the effects of starvation. Furthermore, this conceptualization is in conflict with the claim that individuals who meet the diagnostic criteria for terminal anorexia have decision making capacity. It should therefore be rejected.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISSN:	1469-2147
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	15 July 2024
Date of Acceptance:	27 June 2024
Last Modified:	19 Jul 2024 03:09
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/170591

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