Experiences of Oregon nurses and social workers with hospice patients who requested assistance with suicide.

Linda Ganzini et al., experiences of Oregon Nurses and Social Workers with Hospice Patients Who Requested Assistance with Suicide, 347 NEW ENG. J. MED. 582 (2002).

Oregon's 1997 Death with Dignity Act legalized physician-assisted suicide. To date, information about patients who have requested this option has come from surveys of physicians. Although 78% of the ninety-one Oregonians who have died by assisted suicide were enrolled in hospice programs, there is little information about the experiences of hospice practitioners with these patients.

In 2001, a questionnaire was mailed to all hospice nurses and social workers in Oregon. Of 545 eligible hospice nurses and social workers, 397 (73%) returned the survey, including 71% of nurses and 78% of social workers. Since November 1997, 179 of the respondents (45%) had cared for a patient who requested assistance with suicide. Hospice nurses reported on eighty-two patients who had received prescriptions for lethal medication. Ninety-eight percent of the nurses had...