ATTITUDES OF LITHUANIAN BIOETHICISTS ON THE ADVANCE DIRECTIVE AND LITHUANIAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
ATTITUDES OF LITHUANIAN BIOETHICISTS ON THE ADVANCE DIRECTIVE AND LITHUANIAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

Summary/Abstract: The advance directive is a medical and legal tool used for several years in the United states of America. It represents the written will expressed in advance by a patient or by healthy people regarding their wishes regarding future healthcare in case at some point they will not be able to express their will. Most poscommunist countries do not have advance directives regulated by law yet. Lithuania is also in this situation. Bioethicists represent one of the professional categories that should be involved in drafting the law introducing advance directives. We have performed 12 interviews with Lithuanian bioethicists regarding their views about the Lithuanian healthcare system and the opportunity of introducing advance directives in their country. Interviews were tape-recorded, typed and reviewed for accuracy. Transcripts of the interviews were compiled and then the phenomenological analysis was applied, aiming to identify the common views of the respondents, but also specific features. A hermeneutic phenomenological approach was used to analyze the data. The views of Lithuanian bioethicists are favorable towards advance directives being implemented, but the actual implementation is thought to be difficult, in a conservative country where medical paternalism still flourishes.

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