Quality of Dying in the Intensive Care Unit: Validation of the CAESAR Scale

Seventy percent of all deaths occur in the hospital environment, and amongst them 20% occur in intensive care units (ICU). In France, no studies have evaluated the quality of the end-of-life process from both the professional and the lay perspective. The CAESAR scale has been developed from literature reviews and qualitative interviews with relatives, physicians and nurse to assess quality of dying in ICU. Our hypothesis is that perception of the quality of dying may impact on relatives' experience of bereavement (anxiety, depression, complicated grief, PTSD).