The project, which is titled “The Wish to Hasten Death: An Operational Definition and Clinical Assessment for Patients Undergoing Palliative Care” and led by Drs. Albert Balaguer and Cristina Monforte, has received a grant to support its work for the next three years. It aims to conceptualize a phenomenon that the authors have been studying for years: namely, the wish to hasten death (WTHD). Preliminary studies conducted by the research group have revealed the different meanings that such a wish can have for those patients who express it, and have highlighted the complexity of the issue and the conceptual ambiguity found in the international literature. To date, only one validated scale for assessing WTHD exists: namely, the Schedule of Attitudes Toward Hastened Death (SAHD). However, although the SAHD is acceptable in psychometric terms, it has significant limitations with regard to conceptualization, clinical applicability and discriminatory capacity.

The grant has been awarded for a new project in which the authors aim to develop a definition that will achieve international consensus. Additionally, they intend to design a valid, reliable and useable tool that is capable of detecting and assessing WTHD.