Attitude towards << physician assisted suicide >> among German doctors: Results of a representative enquiry in the district of Wurzburg

Background and objective: The widespread legalization of >>physician assist ed suicide<< (PAS) in The Netherlands and comparable tendencies in other Eu ropean countries have given rise to discussions of this topic in Germany. T his questionnaire was undertaken because of the dearth of previous informat ive studies in Germany. Subjects and methods: Among all registered practicing doctors in the medica l district of Wurzburg (n = 1821) a randomly selected group of 150 (males a nd females) was asked to participate in a personal interview-enquiry about active and passive euthanasia. 93 (62%, 32% women, 61% men) agreed: 44.1% w ere doctors working in a hospital, 45.2% worked in their own practice, the others worked elsewhere or (3) were retired. All specialities and medical a ctivities were represented. About 40% were general practitioners or worked in internal medicine. Results: 81.7% of the group were against active PAS. All rejected it for no n-moribund patients. Conclusions: The results of this study differ from similar enquiries in oth er countries in demonstrating a relatively strong rejection of active assis tance in patient-suicide. Those German specialists who would most likely be confronted with this problem (e.g. neurologists, intensivists, anaesthetis ts, oncologists) tended towards a greater readiness to agree to physician-a ssisted suicide. A dialogue between doctors in different specialities is an urgent requirement and should be intensively pursued.