Definitions, legislative frameworks, and decision-making pathways for euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the EU, EEA, EFTA regions, and the United Kingdom: A scoping review protocol

Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) are forms of medically assisted dying whose definitions, legal regulation, and clinical implementation vary substantially across European jurisdictions. Differences in how these practices are conceptualised and operationalised influence legislative design, decision-making pathways, safeguards, professional roles, and reported outcomes, and hinder meaningful cross-jurisdictional comparison. This scoping review will systematically map definitions of euthanasia and PAS across legal, ethical, and clinical sources; examine how these definitions are translated into legislative frameworks, including enacted, amended, proposed, and failed legislation; and synthesise evidence on decision-making pathways in practice, encompassing eligibility and capacity assessment, consultation requirements, procedural steps, and oversight mechanisms. Comprehensive searches of medical, ethical, legal, and policy databases were conducted in accordance with PRISMA-ScR guidance. Data will be extracted using structured templates addressing definitions, legislation, and decision-making, and analysed using descriptive, comparative, and thematic approaches. The review will identify patterns of coherence and divergence between definitions, legislative frameworks, and decision-making pathways, and will clarify how these relationships shape reported clinical and procedural outcomes, informing future research, policy development, and clinical guidance.