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Associations of end-of-life preferences and trust in institutions with public support for assisted suicide: evidence from nationally representative survey data of older adults in Switzerland.

ABSTRACT: The legality of euthanasia and assisted suicide (AS) and nature of regulations of these practices remain controversial and the subject of lively debate among experts and the general public. Our study investigates attitudes and behaviours towards AS among older adults in Switzerland where the practice of AS has a relatively long history and remains rather unregulated. We aim to explore how individuals' preferences regarding their end of life, as well as individuals' trust in institutions involved in the practice or control of AS are associated with attitudes and behaviours towards AS. We analyse nationally representative data of adults aged 55 and over from wave 6 (2015) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) in Switzerland (n = 2,145). While large majorities supported current legal arrangements around AS in Switzerland (81.7%) and stated that they could consider AS for themselves under certain circumstances (61.0%), only a minority either was a member of a right-to-die organisation already (4.9%) or stated they were likely to become a member of such an organisation (28.2%). Stated preferences for control over the end of life and for maintaining essential capabilities at the end of life showed a positive association with AS-related attitudes and behaviours, whereas preferences for feeling socially and spiritually connected, as well as for not being a burden displayed a negative association with our outcomes. Higher levels of trust in one's relative were positively associated with both support for the legality of AS and potential use of AS. A positive association was also found between trust in the Swiss legal system and support for the legality of AS. By contrast, trust in religious institutions displayed a negative association with all five AS-related attitudes and behaviours. Similarly, trust in healthcare insurance companies was negatively associated with potential use of AS. Taken together, older adults were generally supportive towards current practices regarding AS. This approval appears to be closely related to individuals' preferences and, at different extends, to trust in social and public institutions with regard to end-of-life issues, which is relatively high in Switzerland.

SUBMITTER: Vilpert S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7179897 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Associations of end-of-life preferences and trust in institutions with public support for assisted suicide: evidence from nationally representative survey data of older adults in Switzerland.

Vilpert Sarah S Borrat-Besson Carmen C Borasio Gian Domenico GD Maurer Jürgen J

PloS one 20200423 4

The legality of euthanasia and assisted suicide (AS) and nature of regulations of these practices remain controversial and the subject of lively debate among experts and the general public. Our study investigates attitudes and behaviours towards AS among older adults in Switzerland where the practice of AS has a relatively long history and remains rather unregulated. We aim to explore how individuals' preferences regarding their end of life, as well as individuals' trust in institutions involved ...[more]

PMID: 32324815

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Project description:BackgroundWHO estimates that about 170,000 deaths by suicide occur in India every year, but few epidemiological studies of suicide have been done in the country. We aimed to quantify suicide mortality in India in 2010.MethodsThe Registrar General of India implemented a nationally representative mortality survey to determine the cause of deaths occurring between 2001 and 2003 in 1·1 million homes in 6671 small areas chosen randomly from all parts of India. As part of this survey, fieldworkers obtained information about cause of death and risk factors for suicide from close associates or relatives of the deceased individual. Two of 140 trained physicians were randomly allocated (stratified only by their ability to read the local language in which each survey was done) to independently and anonymously assign a cause to each death on the basis of electronic field reports. We then applied the age-specific and sex-specific proportion of suicide deaths in this survey to the 2010 UN estimates of absolute numbers of deaths in India to estimate the number of suicide deaths in India in 2010.FindingsAbout 3% of the surveyed deaths (2684 of 95,335) in individuals aged 15 years or older were due to suicide, corresponding to about 187,000 suicide deaths in India in 2010 at these ages (115,000 men and 72,000 women; age-standardised rates per 100,000 people aged 15 years or older of 26·3 for men and 17·5 for women). For suicide deaths at ages 15 years or older, 40% of suicide deaths in men (45,100 of 114,800) and 56% of suicide deaths in women (40,500 of 72,100) occurred at ages 15-29 years. A 15-year-old individual in India had a cumulative risk of about 1·3% of dying before the age of 80 years by suicide; men had a higher risk (1·7%) than did women (1·0%), with especially high risks in south India (3·5% in men and 1·8% in women). About half of suicide deaths were due to poisoning (mainly ingestions of pesticides).InterpretationSuicide death rates in India are among the highest in the world. A large proportion of adult suicide deaths occur between the ages of 15 years and 29 years, especially in women. Public health interventions such as restrictions in access to pesticides might prevent many suicide deaths in India.FundingUS National Institutes of Health.

Project description:The central focus of this research is the fast and crucial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on a crucial psychological, relational, and political construct: trust. We investigate how the consequences of the pandemic, in terms of healthcare, state intervention and impositions, and daily life and habits, have affected trust in public institutions in Italy, at the time when the contagion was rapidly spreading in the country (early March 2020). In this survey, addressed to 4260 Italian citizens, we analyzed and measured such impact, focusing on various aspects of trust. This attention to multiple dimensions of trust constitutes the key conceptual advantage of this research, since trust is a complex and layered construct, with its own internal dynamics. In particular, the analysis focuses on how citizens attribute trust to Public Authorities, in relation to the management of the health crisis: with regard to the measures and guidelines adopted, the purposes pursued, the motivations that determine them, their capacity for involvement, and their effectiveness for the containment of the virus itself. A pandemic creates a bilateral need for trust, both in Public Authorities (they have to rely on citizens' compliance and must try to promote and maintain their trust in order to be effective) and in citizens, since they need to feel that somebody can do something, can (has the power to) protect them, to act at the needed collective level. We are interested to explore how this need for trust affects the attributional process, regarding both attitudes and the corresponding decisions and actions. The most striking result of this survey is the very high level of institutional trust expressed by respondents: 75% of them trust Italian public authorities to be able to deal with the COVID-19 emergency. This is in sharp contrast with the relatively low levels of institutional trust characteristic of Italy, both historically and in recent surveys. Moreover, the survey allowed the discrimination of several potential predictors for trust, thus emphasizing factors that, during this crisis, are exhibiting an anomalous impact on trust.

Project description:BackgroundIn Switzerland, people can be granted access to assisted suicide (AS) on condition that the person whose wish is to die performs the fatal act, that he has his decisional capacity and that the assisting person's conduct is not selfishly motivated. No restrictions relating to the ground of suffering are mentioned in the act. Existential suffering as a reason for wanting to die, however, gives raise to controversial issues. Moreover, existential suffering lacks definition and no consensus exists on how to evaluate and manage it. This study explores the perspectives of care professionals and volunteers from a "right-to-die organization" on existential suffering as a motive for assisted suicide requests.MethodsA qualitative study based on face-to-face interviews was conducted with twenty-six participants: palliative care and primary care providers as well as EXIT right-to-die organization volunteers. Elements from the grounded theory approach were used.ResultsThe twenty-six participants described existential suffering in a multiplicity of individual ways. In total, sixty-three stories were recounted. Their representations were grouped into eight categories: physical decline and its consequences, loneliness, fear of the future, life is over, loss of social significance, loss of hope for a better future, being a financial burden and loss of pleasurable activities. According to all participants, suffering coming from the loss of self-identity was always linked to physical decline, as if one's image completely defined someone's identity. Society's perception of old people and vulnerable people were also often questioned. Another interesting point was that only four stories referring to a "pure" existential suffering were found. This suffering was related to a feeling that life has come to an end, without identification of any other related restriction or suffering.ConclusionsExistential suffering is multifaceted. Legislators and right-to-die organisations have to address the question of what make a AS acceptable. The plurality of existential suffering implies the need of a very personalized care. A better understanding of what it is made of could provide a "toolbox" to people concerned by these requests, helping them to explore it in order to offer suffering people a wider range of alternatives.

Project description:OBJECTIVES:Person-centered care (PCC), which considers nursing home resident preferences in care delivery, has been linked to important outcomes such as improved quality of life, resident satisfaction with care, and mood and reduced behavioral symptoms for residents with dementia. Delivery of PCC fundamentally relies on knowledge of resident preferences. The Minimum Data Set (MDS) 3.0 Preference Assessment Tool (PAT) is a standardized, abbreviated assessment that facilitates systematic examination of preferences from a population of nursing home residents. However, it is unknown how well the PAT discriminates preferences across residents or items. The purpose of this study was to use MDS 3.0 PAT data to describe (1) overall resident preferences, (2) variation in preferences across items, and (3) variation in preferences across residents. DATA:Data from admission MDS assessments between October 1, 2011 and December 31, 2011 were used for this study. SAMPLE:A nationally representative sample of 244,718 residents over the age of 65 years who were able to complete the resident interview version of preference, cognition, and depression assessments were included. MEASUREMENTS:Importance ratings of 16 daily care and activity preferences were the primary outcome measures. Resident factors including function (MDS Activities of Daily Living-Long Form), depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9), cognitive impairment (Brief Interview for Mental Status), and sociodemographics (age, race, sex, and marital status) were used as predictors of important preferences. ANALYSIS:Overall preferences were examined using descriptive statistics. Proportional differences tests were used to describe variation across items. Logistic regression was used to describe variation in preferences across residents. RESULTS:The majority of residents rated all 16 preferences important. However, there was variation across items and residents. Involvement of family in care and individualizing daily care and activities were rated important by the largest proportion of residents. Several resident factors including cognitive impairment, depression, sex, and race were significant predictors of preferences. CONCLUSIONS:Findings demonstrate the PAT captures variation in preferences across items and residents. Residents with possible depression and cognitive impairment were less likely to rate preferences important than residents without those conditions. Non-Caucasian and male residents reported some preferences differently than Caucasian and female residents. Additional assessment and care planning may be important for these residents. More research is needed to determine the factors that influence preferences and the ways to incorporate them into care.

Project description:CONTEXT:The Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS) was first fielded in 2014 and is the largest public health workforce survey in the nation. This article elucidates the methods used for the 2017 PH WINS fielding. PROGRAM OR POLICY:PH WINS was fielded to a nationally representative sample of State Health Agency Central Office (SHA-CO) staff, as well as local health department (LHD) staff. The instrument largely mirrored 2014, though the training needs section was revised, and a validated item measuring burnout in staff was added. IMPLEMENTATION:Staff lists were collected directly from all participating state and local agencies. Forty-seven state health agencies (SHAs), 26 large LHDs, and 71 midsize LHDs participated. All SHAs were surveyed using a census approach. The nationally representative SHA-CO frame is representative of all central office staff members. The nationally representative local frame was a complex survey design, wherein staff from LHDs were randomly sampled across 20 strata, based on agency size and geographic region. Staff were also contributed with certainty from large LHDs in nondecentralized states. The frame is representative of staff at LHDs serving more than 25 000 people and with 25 or more staff members. Other LHDs are excluded, and so PH WINS is not representative of smaller LHDs. Balanced repeated replication weights were used to adjust variance estimates for the complex design. EVALUATION:Overall, 47 604 people responded to PH WINS in 2017 across all frames. PH WINS 2017 achieved a response rate of 48%. The design effect for the SHA-CO frame was 1.46 and was 16.42 for the local frame. DISCUSSION:PH WINS now offers a nationally representative sample of both SHA-CO and LHD staff across 4 major domains: workplace environment, training needs, emerging concepts in public health, and demographics. Both practice and academia can use PH WINS to better understand the perceptions and needs of staff, address training gaps, and work to recruit and retain quality staff.

Dataset Information

Associations of end-of-life preferences and trust in institutions with public support for assisted suicide: evidence from nationally representative survey data of older adults in Switzerland.

Publications

Associations of end-of-life preferences and trust in institutions with public support for assisted suicide: evidence from nationally representative survey data of older adults in Switzerland.

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