Attitudes of Hungarian students and nurses to physician assisted suicide.

Full Abstract

In Hungary, which has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world, physician assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia are punishable criminal acts. Attitudes towards self destruction and assisted suicide are, however, very controversial. We investigated the attitudes of medical students, nurses and social science students in Hungary towards PAS, using a twelve item scale:
the total number of participants was 242. Our results indicate a particular and controversial relationship between attitudes towards assisted suicide in Hungary and experience with terminally ill people. The social science students, who had the fewest personal experiences with terminally ill patients, are characterised by the most permissive attitudes towards assisted suicide. Nurses, who had everyday contact and experience with these patients, were the most conservative, being least supportive of assisted suicide. The attitudes of medical students, the would be physicians, are somewhere between those of nurses and social science students.

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Author information

Author/s: Fekete, S (S); Osvath, P (P); Jegesy, A (A);

Affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pecs, Pecs, Hungary. sfekete@neuro.pote.hu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of medical ethics (J Med Ethics), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Apr; vol 28 (issue 2) : pp 126

Dates: Created 2002/04/05; Completed 2002/07/10; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 11934945, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Male
Nurses - psychology
Questionnaires
Social Sciences
Students - psychology
Students, Medical - psychology
Suicide, Assisted

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