Non-regulated but involved: Exploring the experiences of unregulated support providers in MAiD service delivery in Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Since its legalization in 2016, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in Canada has undergone significant development, yet the roles of Unregulated Support Providers (USPs) remain largely overlooked in research and policy discussions. This study investigates the experiences of and challenges faced by USPs supporting patients choosing MAiD in Canada. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 19 USPs across Canada, recruited via purposive sampling. Thematic analysis was employed to explore experiences and identify patterns of service provision, collaboration, and barriers to care. USPs offer emotional, educational, and logistical support to patients and families navigating MAiD-related decisions. Despite their contributions, they face barriers, such as financial inaccessibility and lack of formal recognition. Participants advocated for greater integration into the formal healthcare system and regulation to enhance accountability, accessibility, and patient safety. USPs can play an important yet overlooked role in MAiD. Their formal recognition could enhance psychosocial care for patients.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.012 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.025 | 0.015 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".