In Their Own Words: Oncology Nurses Respond to Patient Requests for Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Little is currently known about the context, nature, or frequency of nurses' responses to patient requests for help in dying. Only two empirical studies have surveyed American nurses about their actual responses to such requests. 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 euthanasia. One hundred and ten of those 441 nurses wrote comments on their returned questionnaires. This article describes the content analysis of those comments. Those oncology nurses who wrote have much to say about caring for patients at the end of life.