most often diagnosed with mood disorders (66%) and personality disorders (54%). Also, anxiety disorders (29%) and eating disorders (20%) were relatively common. As specific diagnoses, depressive disorder (46%) and PTSD (23%) were most common (Table 1). In 34% of the reports, a history of suicide attempts was mentioned. 71% of patients have more than one psychiatric disorder, meaning that a minority of 10 patients (29%) received PAD due to suffering caused by a single disorder. These were, respectively, alcohol dependence, PTSD, anorexia nervosa, schizoaffective disorder, depression in extensive somatic disease, OCD with severe somatic comorbidity, and a depressive adjustment disorder due to tinnitus. Personality disorders only occurred together with other psychiatric disorders, meaning that based on these reports none of the euthanized patients suffered solely from a personality disorder. Although words such as ‘severe’ or ‘grave’ are often mentioned in the reports, no quantitative estimation about the severity of the suffering was deducible, for instance by GAF scores. FIGURE 1. Age distribution of 35 patients that received PAD due to psychiatric suffering (in number of cases) Somatic comorbidity occurred in 13 patients (37%), including cardiac arrhythmias; Alzheimer’s dementia; heart failure; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); arthrosis; hearing impairment; dizziness; Ehlers-Danlos syndrome; obesity; skin problems; migraine; chronic pain; tinnitus; diverticulitis; spastic quadriplegia; osteoporosis; anemia; and renal dysfunction. 42 | PART I - CHAPTER 3 3
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