Skip to main content

Doctors' Preferences for Their Own End-of-Life Care? No Life-Sustaining Practices

By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on June 13, 2025.

via HealthDay

FRIDAY, June 13, 2025 -- Many physicians would personally prefer to avoid life-sustaining practices if they had advanced cancer or Alzheimer disease, according to a study published online June 10 in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Sarah Mroz, M.P.H., from the End-of-Life Care Research Group in Brussels, and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional survey in eight jurisdictions to examine physicians' personal preferences for end-of-life practices. A total of 1,157 survey responses from general practitioners, palliative care physicians, and other medical specialists were analyzed.

The researchers found that in advanced cancer and Alzheimer disease, respectively, physicians rarely considered life-sustaining practices a good or very good option (cardiopulmonary resuscitation, 0.5 and 0.2 percent; mechanical ventilation, 0.8 and 0.3 percent; tube feeding, 3.5 and 3.8 percent); euthanasia was considered a good or very good option by about half of physicians (54.2 percent for cancer and 51.5 percent for Alzheimer disease). The proportion of physicians considering euthanasia a good or very good option varied from 37.9 to 80.8 percent in Italy and Belgium, respectively, in the cancer scenario, and from 37.4 to 67.4 percent in Georgia, USA, and Belgium, respectively, in the Alzheimer disease scenario. The likelihood of considering euthanasia a good or very good option for both cancer and Alzheimer disease was higher for physicians practicing in a jurisdiction with a legal option for both euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (odds ratios, 3.1 for cancer and 1.9 for Alzheimer disease).

"It is striking that many physicians would also consider euthanasia in the Alzheimer's disease scenario, despite the progressive status of this disease making it a complex basis for a competent assisted dying request. In most jurisdictions, the law would not allow physicians to grant this request," the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Read this next

Weather Disasters Impacted Counties With More Than 60 Percent of Drug Production Facilities

FRIDAY, Aug. 22, 2025 -- More than 60 percent of drug production facilities were located in U.S. counties with at least one disaster declaration from 2019 to 2024, according to a...

Sensitive Personalities Tied to More Mental Health Conditions

FRIDAY, Aug. 22, 2025 -- People with sensitive personalities are more prone to common mental health problems such as agoraphobia and avoidant personality disorder, according to a...

Novel Biomarker Risk Prediction Models Examined in Chronic Kidney Disease

FRIDAY, Aug. 22, 2025 -- For adults with nondialysis chronic kidney disease (CKD), risk prediction models incorporating novel biomarkers show comparable discrimination to...

More news resources

Subscribe to our newsletter

Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.