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Am J Psychiatry 1996; 153:1469-1475
Copyright © 1996 by American Psychiatric Association
Attitudes of Oregon psychiatrists toward physician-assisted suicide
L Ganzini, DS Fenn, MA Lee, RT Heintz and JD Bloom
Department of Psychiatry, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, USA. ganzinil@ohsu.ed
OBJECTIVE: After passage, in November 1994, of Oregon's ballot measure
legalizing physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill persons, the
authors surveyed psychiatrists in Oregon to determine their attitudes
toward assisted suicide, the factors influencing these attitudes, and how
they might both respond to and follow up a request by a primary care
physician to evaluate a terminally ill patient desiring assisted suicide.
METHOD: An anonymous questionnaire was sent to all 418 Oregon
psychiatrists. RESULTS: Seventy-seven percent of psychiatrists (N = 321)
returned the questionnaire. Two-thirds endorsed the view that a physician
should be permitted, under some circumstances, to write a prescription for
a medication whose sole purpose would be to allow a patient to end his or
her life. One-third endorsed the view that this practice should never be
permitted. Over half favored Oregon's assisted suicide initiative becoming
law. Psychiatrists' position on legalization of assisted suicide influenced
the likelihood that they would agree to evaluate patients requesting
assisted suicide and how they would follow up an evaluation of a competent
patient desiring assisted suicide. Only 6% of psychiatrists were very
confident that in a single evaluation they could adequately assess whether
a psychiatric disorder was impairing the judgment of a patient requesting
assisted suicide. CONCLUSIONS: Psychiatrists in Oregon are divided in their
belief about the ethical permissibility of assisted suicide, and their
moral beliefs influence how they might evaluate a patient requesting
assisted suicide, should this practice be legalized. Psychiatrists'
confidence in their ability to determine whether a psychiatric disorder
such as depression was impairing the judgment of a patient requesting
assisted suicide was low.
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