Opinions about euthanasia of nurses working in intensive care units in Adana

ABSTRACTOpinions About Euthanasia of Nurses Working In Intensive Care Unitsin AdanaEuthanasia is defined as ending the life of patient who cannot be treatedand/or provided with adequate life quality by available medical practices.Opinions of nurses are important in developing political measure abouteuthanasia because this group are the primary care-takers in hospitals. Ourstudy has been carried out to determine the opinions of nurses working inintensive care units (ICU) of the several hospitals in Adana. This descriptivestudy was performed on 186 nurses working in the ICUs of Balcalı Hospital ofÇukurova University Faculty of Medicine, Adana Numune Training andResearch Hospital of Turkish Ministry of Health and, Adana Research andPractice Hospital of Başkent University.After getting permissions from the hospitel managements,a questionnaire, questioning socio-demografic characteristics, knowledge andopinions about the euthanasia was given to nurses who accepted to join thestudy. The mean age of the nurses who 26.9 + 3.9, 73.7% of them had graduatedfrom vocationals schools, and themean duration of professional experience was6.6 + 5.1. Of all the nurses, 50.0% were married, 44.6% working at the ICU ofinternal medicine; 55.9% thought that euthanasia was the right of a patient as ahuman being, and 24.8% of them would ask for euthanasia if they werebedridden. Legal euthanasia in Turkey was not supported by 39.8% of thenurses, and there were more nurses supporting the legality of euthanasia (bothactive and passive) at the Balcali Hospital (a state university hospital). In case itbecomes legal, 63.4% of the nurses think that euthanasia should be practiced bya team that determined by law, 81.7% would not want to take part in aneuthanasia practice, 81.2% think that it could be exploited by people.of all thenurses 44.1% believe that euthanasia is being practiced in some conditions inour country. It was seen that nurses working in at ICU?s support passiveeuthanasia rather than active euthanasia.The findings can be used in education of nurses for equipping them formore professional nursing care to the patients declaring their will to euthanasia.Key Words: Nursing, Euthanasia, Deaht, Intensive Care Unitsiv