Attitudes of Oregon Psychiatrists Toward Physician-Assisted Suicide

An anonymous questionnaire was sent to 418 Oregon psychiatrists to determine their attitudes toward assisted suicide. 321 responses were received. Two-thirds endorsed the view, that under certain circumstances, a physician should be permitted to write a prescription whose sole purpose would be to end life. Only 6% of respondents were very confident that a single evaluation could assess whether a psychiatric disorder was impairing the judgement of a patient requesting assisted suicide. (21 refs.)