Attitudes Toward Euthanasia: Contradictory Views and Ideas of Alzheimer Patients’ Relatives

Abstract

Introduction

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the pressing social problems as the negative effects of the disease often manifest on patients’ relatives. Relatives of AD patients experience physical and psychological burden during the care.

Objectives

To clarify what kind of views on euthanasia are more common among relatives of patients with AD.

Methods

The study involved 23 AD patients’ relatives (mean age 60, SD = 2). There were 5 men (22%) and 18 women (78%). All participants were directly involved in caring for their relatives with AD. A 19-item structured questionnaire (E. Nikolaev, 2016) was used for measuring medical, legal, ethical, socio-cultural, spiritual and personal aspects of attitudes to euthanasia.

Results

The respondents were less likely to see euthanasia as medical issue. They also referred it to kind of ethical and legal problems. Legal aspects were determined by greater consent to its legalization and by awareness of imperfections of legal basis for its immediate implementation. Ethical issues according to which euthanasia practice was related to the development of humanity complemented this vision. These settings were in conflict with socio-cultural perceptions of euthanasia. Respondents were convinced in possibility of various forms of abuse during euthanasia. Supporting the ideas of euthanasia in general, many respondents on a personal level were not ready to apply them to their relatives with AD in practice.

Conclusions

Attitudes to euthanasia in AD patients’ relatives was contradictory. It was determined by divergent ideas about euthanasia in field of legal, social, cultural, spiritual and personal issues of this interdisciplinary phenomenon.

Disclosure of interest

The author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.