[Analysis of a clinical ethics committee activities at a general hospital]

Clinical Ethics Committees are deliberative groups whose main functions are to assess cases with ethical-clinical conflicts, to generate institutional protocols for preventive purposes, and to train health teams.

To analyze the activity of a clinical ethics committee of a general hospital in the period 2007-2020.

A retrospective analysis of all session records, annual reports, case resolution and documents generated by the Clinical Ethics Committee of Carlos van Buren Hospital in Valparaíso, Chile, between 2007 and 2020, was carried out.

On average, 12 cases are analyzed per year. Sixty percent correspond to requests from pediatric units and in 78% of these cases there was at least one neurological disease. In 62% of cases, the main ethical dilemma was adequacy of therapeutic effort, followed by dilemmas related to the exercise of autonomy in 18.2%. In education, two courses are identified aimed to doctors, residents, and other members of the health team. Regarding normative functions, several documents were generated at the request of the Hospital management or in different clinical situations. During COVID-19 pandemia, the active role of the committee was linked to the three main functions, namely evaluating cases, participating in morbidity and mortality meetings for preventive purposes, and issuing guidelines and recommendations for action. The active participation of Pediatric Neurology residents in the Committee, for educational and administrative purposes, stands out.

The three main functions described for the ethics committees were exerted by this Committee during the evaluated period. The impact of our recommendations remain to be objectively evaluated.