assessment of nurses’ views about euthanasia according to their departments

Objective: This study includes evaluation of views of the nurses working in two different university hospitals on euthanasia. Methods: This research was planned in form of a cross-sectional definitive questionnaire to analyze views of the nurses on euthanasia according to their departments. A face to face interview was performed with the nurses working in Medical Faculties of Dicle and Gaziantep Universities in 2013. One hundred and fifty two volunteers were examined according to the gender, age, marital status, number of children, family type that they live in, the department that they work, their frequency to meet death, professional experience, presence of any relative confined to bed, their ideas on whether the euthanasia law should be enacted, whether they would request euthanasia for themselves and their relatives. Result: Participants included 125 (82.2%) women and 27 (17.8%) men; average age was 26.68 ± 12.76 (20-56) years and 21 (13.8%) cases did not report their ages. Eighty-nine (58.6%) participants were married, 50 (32.9%) participants were single and 105 (69.1%) participants lived in an elementary family environment. Fifty eight (38.2%) participants expressed an opinion on requirement of a legal regulation to make euthanasia possible and 40 (26.3%) reported that they were uncertain about this subject. No statistically significant difference was detected between willingness and unwillingness of euthanasia according to their departments (p>0.05). Conclusion: As a result of this study, we find that some of the nurses consider application of the passive euthanasia occurs in our country although euthanasia is forbidden.