Ml. Matzo et Jk. Schwarz, In their own words: Oncology nurses respond to patient requests for assisted suicide and euthanasia, AP NURS RES, 14(2), 2001, pp. 64-71
Little is currently known about the context, nature, or frequency of nurses
' responses to patient requests for help in dying. Only two empirical studi
es have surveyed American nurses about their actual responses to such reque
sts. In one of those studies. 441 New England oncology nurses described how
often patients ask them for help in ending their lives and also indicated
how often they participated in assisted suicide and patient-requested eutha
nasia. One hundred and ten of those 441 nurses wrote comments on their retu
rned questionnaires. This article describes the content analysis of those c
omments. Those oncology nurses who wrote have much to say about caring for
patients at the end of life. Copyright (C) 2001 by W.B. Saunders Company.