Evaluation of knowledge and attitude towards euthanasia among Shiraz university medical students

The aim of this study ws to evaluate knowledge and attitude towards euthanasia and understanding of  its pitfalls in medical education.

In a cross-sectional study in fall and winter 2015, medical students at different educational levels were asked to participate in this study. A questionnaire which was adopted from 3 foreign surveys after Persian translation by backward-forward method was used.  

The response rate was 88.36%. The reliability of the tool using Cronbach’s α was 0.72. The most common problem was detection of active involuntary euthanasia. In all, 67.2% were unable to define forbidden tasks for a critically ill patient. 84.9% agreed to ratify the law to introduce permissible cases of euthanasia. However, 62.4% were concerned about misuse of such law by some people, 77.6% were agreed euthanasia about themselves in complex medical situations. In all, 66.7% believed palliative medicine is a good way to relief patent's unpleasant symptoms, to Improve patient's quality of life.  

It seems that lack of awareness of the advances in palliative medicine and its goal to Improve the quality of life in dying patient is one of the reasons for the relatively high level of agreement for doing euthanasia.