ArticleBMC medical ethics2018
Changes in attitudes towards hastened death among Finnish physicians over the past sixteen years.
Article in BMC medical ethics, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Finnish physicians' attitudes towards euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: a nationwide cross-sectional study.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Context factors in clinical decision-making: a scoping review.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2025Article
- Contextualizing attitudes toward medical aid in dying in a national sample of interdisciplinary US hospice clinicians: hospice philosophy of care, patient-centered care, and professional exposure.Palliative care and social practice · 2024Article
- Ambivalence toward euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide has decreased among physicians in Finland.BMC medical ethics · 2022Article
- Physicians' decreased tendency to choose palliative care for patients with advanced dementia between 1999 and 2015.BMC palliative care · 2021Article
- Trends in Swedish physicians' attitudes towards physician-assisted suicide: a cross-sectional study.BMC medical ethics · 2021Article
- Development and psychometric evaluation of a new tool for measuring the attitudes of patients with progressive neurological diseases to ethical aspects of end-of-life care.BMC medical ethics · 2020Article
- Attitudes of Physicians towards Different Types of Euthanasia in Kuwait.Medical principles and practice : international journal of the Kuwait University, Health Science Centre · 2019Article
- Does Decision-making in End-of-life Care Differ Between Graduating Medical Students and Experienced Physicians?In vivo (Athens, Greece)Article
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5 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundThe ethics of hastened death are complex. Studies on physicians' opinions about assisted dying (euthanasia or assisted suicide) exist, but changes in physicians' attitudes towards hastened death in clinical decision-making and the background factors explaining this remain unclear. The aim of this study was to explore the changes in these attitudes among Finnish physicians.
methodsA questionnaire including hypothetical patient scenarios was sent to 1182 and 1258 Finnish physicians in 1999 and 2015, respectively. Two scenarios of patients with advanced cancer were presented: one requesting an increase in his morphine dose to a potentially lethal level and another suffering a cardiac arrest. Physicians' attitudes towards assisted death, life values and other background factors were queried as well. The response rate was 56%.
resultsThe morphine dose was increased by 25% and 34% of the physicians in 1999 and 2015, respectively (p < 0.001). Oncologists approved the increase most infrequently without a significant change between the study years (15% vs. 17%, p = 0.689). Oncological specialty, faith in God, female gender and younger age were independent factors associated with the reluctance to increase the morphine dose. Euthanasia, but not assisted suicide, was considered less reprehensible in 2015 (p = 0.008). In both years, most physicians (84%) withheld cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
conclusionFinnish physicians accepted the risk of hastening death more often in 2015 than in 1999. The physicians' specialty and many other background factors influenced this acceptance. They also regarded euthanasia as less reprehensible now than they did 16 years ago.
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