Trusted evidence. Informed decisions. Better health. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews families specifically ask for an ethics consultation to resolve a specific ethical conflict. All studies received public funding and one received additional funding from private sources. Three studies reported on proactive ethics consultation. We found no data on decisional conflict, moral distress, patient involvement in decision-making, quality of life of patients or ethical competency. One study assessed satisfaction with care. It was uncertain whether proactive ethics consultation increased satisfaction with care, because the certainty of the evidence was very low. One study reported on request-based ethics consultation. The study assessed the level of consensus regarding decisions about the care of patients as an indirect criterion for the reduction of decisional conflict. It was uncertain whether request-based ethics consultation increased consensus and, thus, reduced decisional conflict, because the certainty of the evidence was very low. We found no data on moral distress, patient involvement in decision-making, quality of life of patients or ethical competency. How up to date is this review? The review authors searched for studies that were published up to September 2018.