70 percent of Queensland community members agree with euthanasia law: study
Seventy percent of Queensland community members are in favour of laws which would permit active voluntary euthanasia, according to a University of Queensland study.
This compares with 33 percent of Queensland doctors also surveyed by the University team, in a study reported in this week's Australian Medical Journal.
The researchers conducted a random survey of 910 Queensland community members (486 responded).
In addition, 387 medical practitioners were randomly sampled from Commonwealth lists of general practitioners (GPs) in Brisbane and Wide Bay, and specialist Colleges in Brisbane. 259 (67 percent) responded (69 percent of GPs; 64 percent of specialists).
The study involved participants completing a 100-question survey, with follow-up of non-responders.
According to study leader and Director of the Healthy Ageing Research Unit within the Social and Preventive Medicine Department Dr Margaret Steinberg, the study aimed to explore the current attitudes and knowledge of the Queensland community and medical practitioners on end-of-life questions.
'This objective and rigorous survey of community and doctor opinions will inform the current debate on withdrawal of life support, physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia,' Dr Steinberg said.
'There are significant differences between community members and doctors on key issues relating to end-of-life decisions.
'The community perspective needs to be heard in the current legislative and political discussions and it is very important to try to understand why the community is saying what it is about current options and services at the end of life.'
Dr Steinberg said the study showed community members were more concerned about the loss of control or dignity, functional debility and being a burden.
'Doctors considered pain to be more important,' Dr Steinberg said.
Other University of Queensland researchers involved with the study were Anthropology and Sociology Department head Professor Jake Najman, Social and Preventive Medicine Department co-ordinator Colleen Cartwright and senior research assistant Sylvia MacDonald, and reader in statistics at the Australian Centre for International and Tropical Health and Nutrition Associate Professor Gail Williams.
The study was funded by the Federal Government's Research and Development Grants Advisory Committee.
Major study findings regarding end-of-life decisions were:
- 78 percent of community members and 54 percent of doctors thought that a doctor should comply with a patient's request to turn off a life support system;
- 70 percent of community members and 33 percent of doctors thought the law should allow active voluntary euthanasia;
- 65 percent of community members and 36 percent of doctors thought that a doctor should be allowed by law to assist a terminally ill person to die;
- 68 percent of doctors and 54 percent of community members thought people would still ask to have their life ended, even if pain were controlled;
- 79 percent of doctors and 75 percent of community members agreed that people would still ask for assistance to end their lives, even if optimal palliative care were freely available;
- general practitioners and specialists held similar views on euthanasia.
Major study findings regarding requests to doctors for assistance to end life were:
- 53 percent of doctors had been asked for assistance by patients to end their life;
- 43 percent of doctors had been asked by patients to administer something to end their life;
- 19 percent had been asked by a patient's family to end the patient's life;
- 52 percent of doctors did not agree that active voluntary euthanasia would undermine the basic trust between patients and care-giver.
The study also looked at the experience of palliative care - treatment that does not aim to cure someone but aims to keep them physically as comfortable and as pain-free as possible while also attending to their emotional, mental, social and spiritual needs.
Major findings were:
- 17 percent of doctors claimed to have specific training in palliative care and 78 percent had referred patients to a palliative care service;
- 17 percent of the community had a family member who had received palliative care.
For more information, contact Dr Steinberg (telephone 07 3365 5424 (work) or 07 3870 3659 (home)) or Professor Najman (telephone 07 3365 3152 (work) or 07 3378 6365 (home)).
