Desire For Physician-assisted Suicide Among Patients Receiving Palliative Cancer Care: Survey Results

The results are part of the Canadian National Palliative Care Survey, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The survey is believed to be one of the largest and most comprehensive of its kind, including detailed interviews with 379 patients across Canada receiving palliative care for cancer. Findings have been published and released in several stages, with previous stages focusing on depression, anxiety, and suffering.

Findings published in this stage include:

• Sixty-three per cent of participants believed that euthanasia and / or physician-assisted suicide should be legalized.
• Forty per cent of participants indicated they would consider making a future request for physician-assisted suicide if their situation deteriorated to a “worst-case scenario”.
• Ten per cent of participants believed that had the option been legally available, they would already have requested physician-assisted suicide, usually because of uncontrolled pain. When their pain was brought under control, however, they tended to change their minds about suicide.

Nevertheless, a further six per cent of participants indicated they would immediately request physician-assisted suicide, if it were available. Interestingly, for this group, the issues tended to be more complex than pain alone.

The study was led by Dr. Keith Wilson, an Associate Scientist at the Ottawa Health Research Institute, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, Psychologist at The Ottawa Hospital Rehabilitation Centre, and Scientist at the Elisabeth Bruyère Research Institute.

“The results of this study are helping us answer fundamental questions about the factors that lead some people to consider euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide,” said Dr. Wilson. “For example, we found that people who said they would request suicide were not necessarily closer to death and were not in significantly more pain, but they were much more likely to be experiencing drowsiness, general malaise, depression, and a feeling of being a burden to others. We also found that those people who reversed their desire for suicide may have done so because their physical and mental symptoms subsided, either on their own or through treatment.”

Dr. Wilson noted that the study has several limitations. For example, some physicians chose not to approach patients about the study because they were concerned it would compromise their care, and some patients who were approached declined to participate. Despite these limitations, the study remains the most comprehensive of its kind in Canada.