Attitudes of Physicians on Disclosing Information to and Maintaining Life for Terminal Patients

Abstract

Four parallel surveys were made comparing physicians with nurses, hospital chaplains, and a non-hospital sample of college students on their attitudes toward informing terminal patients of their conditions and toward active and passive euthanasia. The present study supports the hypothesis that the apparent contradiction among recent reports on the attitudes of physicians may be due to a shift toward more openness with terminal patients on the part of physicians over the last decade. With respect to sustaining life in terminal patients, there was almost unanimous support for passive euthanasia (i.e. not using extraordinary means) among all four groups of respondents. However, active euthanasia (mercy killing) received majority approval only from student nurses and college students.