مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - Opinion of medical students about the end of life

Abstract :

Aim. This descriptive study aimed to determine the view of sixth class medical faculty students about the end of life. Method. The union of the study is composed of 107 students from the sixth class of medical faculty of Cumhuriyet University. From this union, 97 students were included who accepted to join the study. The questionnaire called as “Ethical Decision Making and Patient Autonomy” made was applied. The data’s of the study were assessed by SPSS 14.0 packet program. For statistical analysis, percentile distribution and chi- square tests were used. Differences were considered significant when P was less 0.05. Result. According to the age, the 41% of participitants were 24 years old and 60% were male. Among the students, 91% of them said that they have an opinion about the and of life and 89% said that they saw any patient waiting for the death. For the untreatable and bad stage cancer patients, the 64% of students agreed to tell the truth to the patient but not to the family according to the wish of the patient. When the patient cannot decide by himself or herself about the end of life, the 84 % of students said that the patient have to be connected to the respiratory machine in spite of family does not want. In addition, the 84 % of participitants did not accepted to give overdose drug if the patient wanted and doctors doesn’t have enough knowledge about the patient.. The students who have any opinion about the end of life were 91 % and 55 % of students did not accept not to tell the truth to the patient and to give the decision to the family for telling the truth to the patient. Conclusion. Generally, for giving information about the illness, the participitants respected to the rights of patients and give autonomy to the patients but they did not give autonomy about taking overdose drug and ending the life.