ATTITUDE OF DOCTORS AND NURSES TOWARDS EUTHANASIA IN A SELECTED HOSPITAL AT MANGALURU: A PILOT STUDY
Viji Prasad C.* and Vina Vaswani
ABSTRACT
Euthanasia has been deliberated for the ethical, legal, religious and social allegations related to it. “Right to life” which is natural right, but euthanasia is an unnatural cessation of life. It is the duty of health professionals to recognize the needs of patients with terminal illness and to take steps on this understanding. Aim: The present study was conducted to assess the attitude of doctors and nurses towards euthanasia at a selected hospital, Mangaluru, India. Materials and methods: Descriptive comparative research design was adopted for the study. A total of 40 samples (20 doctors and 20 nurses) were selected by using Non- probability convenience sampling technique Modified attitude scale was used to collect data. Descriptive statistics and non-parametric test (independent t test) was used to analyze the data. P-value of <0.05 was taken as statistically significant. Results: Among the participants, 55% of doctors and 85% of nurses were favoured euthanasia. Doctors were more strongly favoured euthanasia than nurses. Comparison of attitude towards euthanasia was revealed that there was a significant difference between attitudes of doctors and nurses (t value-2.239, p value-0.037; p<0.05) Conclusion: While doctors and nurses were generally agreeing with ethical and legal aspects on euthanasia, their knowledge and attitude towards it needs to be strengthened. Limitations in this study exist in the form that the items used in the tool were focused to euthanasia in general and small sample size. Hence, study results suggest that similar study should be undertaken on a large scale.
Keywords: Euthanasia; Attitude; Doctors; Nurses.
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