ICU health care workers opinion on physician-assisted-suicide and euthanasia: a French survey

BackgroundIn France, physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia are not legal but are still debated. French intensive care unit (ICU) health care workers (HCWs) have an insider's perspective on the global quality of the patient's end-of-life, whether it occurs in ICU or not. However, their opinion about euthanasia/physician-assisted suicide remains unknown. The aim of this study is to investigate the opinion of French ICU HCWs about physician-assisted suicide/euthanasia.ResultsA total of 1149 ICU HCWs participated to a self-administered anonymous questionnaire: 411 (35.8%) physicians and 738 (64.2%) non-physicians. Among them, 76.5% indicated they were in favor of legalizing euthanasia/physician-assisted suicide. Non-physicians HCWs were significantly more in favor of the legalization of euthanasia/physician assisted suicide than physicians (87% vs 57.8% p < 0.001). Euthanasia/physician-assisted suicide of an ICU patient raised the most important difference in positive judgment between physicians and non-physicians HCWs (80.3% vs 42.2%; p < 0.001 of non-physicians and physicians, respectively). The questionnaire included three case vignettes of concrete examples which participated to the increase in the rate of response in favor of euthanasia/physician-assisted suicide legalization (76.5-82.9%; p < 0.001).ConclusionsKeeping in mind the unknown representation of our sample, ICU HCWs, particularly non physicians, would be in favor of a law legalizing euthanasia/physician-assisted suicide.

Automated summary

This study investigated the opinion of French ICU healthcare workers on physician-assisted suicide/euthanasia. The results showed that 76.5% of healthcare workers supported the legalization of euthanasia/physician-assisted suicide, with non-physician workers showing a higher rate of support than physicians. Additionally, the presentation of specific case vignettes increased the rate of support for legalization.