Nursing

Quality (philosophy)

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak

Engineering

Philosophy

Triage

Ethical issues

Bioethics

Virology

Medical law

Psychiatry

Medical emergency

Outbreak

Environmental health

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Political science

Epistemology

Population

Infectious disease (medical specialty)

Medicine

Pandemic

Disease

Engineering ethics

Pathology

Annals of Intensive Care

The devastating pandemic that has stricken the worldwide population induced an unprecedented influx of patients in ICUs, raising ethical concerns not only surrounding triage and withdrawal of life support decisions, but also regarding family visits and quality of end-of-life support. These ingredients are liable to shake up our ethical principles, sharpen our ethical dilemmas, and lead to situations of major caregiver sufferings. Proposals have been made to rationalize triage policies in conjunction with ethical justifications. However, whatever the angle of approach, imbalance between utilitarian and individual ethics leads to unsolvable discomforts that caregivers will need to overcome. With this in mind, we aimed to point out some critical ethical choices with which ICU caregivers have been confronted during the Covid-19 pandemic and to underline their limits. The formalized strategies integrating the relevant tools of ethical reflection were disseminated without deviating from usual practices, leaving to intensivists the ultimate choice of decision.

Ethical dilemmas due to the Covid-19 pandemic