Journal of medical ethics
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Journal of medical ethics · Nov 2013
Attitudes toward euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: a study of the multivariate effects of healthcare training, patient characteristics, religion and locus of control.
Public and healthcare professionals differ in their attitudes towards euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS), the legal status of which is currently in the spotlight in the UK. In addition to medical training and experience, religiosity, locus of control and patient characteristics (eg, patient age, pain levels, number of euthanasia requests) are known influencing factors. Previous research tends toward basic designs reporting on attitudes in the context of just one or two potentially influencing factors; we aimed to test the comparative importance of a larger range of variables in a sample of nursing trainees and non-nursing controls. ⋯ Multivariate analyses revealed differing predictor models for attitudes towards euthanasia and PAS, and confirm the importance of individual differences in determining these attitudes. The unexpected direction of association between religiosity and attitudes may reflect a broader cultural shift in attitudes since earlier research in this area. Furthermore, these findings suggest it possible that experience, more than training itself, may be a bigger influence on attitudinal differences in healthcare professionals.
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Many organisations in rich countries actively recruit health workers from poor countries. Critics object to this recruitment on the grounds that it has harmful consequences and that it encourages health workers to violate obligations to their compatriots. ⋯ In addition, health workers can immigrate to rich countries and also satisfy their obligations to their compatriots. It is consequently unjustified to blame or sanction organisations that actively recruit health workers.
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I argue that Brierley et al are wrong to claim that parents who request futile treatment are acting against the interests of their child. A better ethical ground for withholding or withdrawing life-prolonging treatment is not that it is in the interests of the patient to die, but rather on grounds of the limitation of resources and the requirements of distributive justice. Put simply, not all treatment that might be in a person's interests must ethically be provided.