Background In most European countries the attitudes regarding the acceptability of active euthanasia have clearly changed in the population since World War II. Therefore, it is interesting to know which trends in attitudes prevail among the physicians of the future. Methods The present study analyses trends in the attitudes towards active euthanasia in medical students at the Medical University of Graz, Austria. The survey was conducted over a period of 9 years, enabling us to investigate trends regarding both attitudes and (...) underlying motives. Results Acceptance of active euthanasia increased from 16.3% to 29.1% to 49.5% in the periods from 2001 to 2003/04 to 2008/09. Conclusions The survey period from 2001 to 2009 reveals a massive change in medical students' attitudes towards active euthanasia under medical supervision. Ethical convictions of medical doctors seem to fall back behind a higher valuation of the autonomy of the patient. (shrink)

Although euthanasia has been a pressing ethical and public issue, empirical data are lacking in Japan. We aimed to explore Japanese nurses’ attitudes to patients’ requests for euthanasia and to estimate the proportion of nurses who have taken active steps to hasten death. A postal survey was conducted between October and December 1999 among all nurse members of the Japanese Association of Palliative Medicine, using a self-administered questionnaire based on the one used in a previous survey with Australian nurses in (...) 1991. The response rate was 68%. A total of 53% of the respondents had been asked by patients to hasten their death, but none had taken active steps to bring about death. Only 23% regarded voluntary active euthanasia as something ethically right and 14% would practice it if it were legal. A comparison with empirical data from the previous Australian study suggests a significantly more conservative attitude among Japanese nurses. (shrink)