Religion may influence doctors’ end-of-life care. Full BBC News article here.
Guidelines stress doctors should discuss treatment with their patients
Doctors with religious beliefs are less likely to take decisions which could hasten the death of those who are terminally ill, a study suggests.
The survey of nearly 4,000 doctors found those with a strong faith were also less likely to discuss end-of-life treatment options with their patient.
The London University research urges greater acknowledgement of how beliefs influence care.
And the Guardian reports on the same research with a somewhat more confrontational heading here, Atheist doctors ‘more likely to hasten death’
Doctors who are atheist or agnostic are twice as likely as those with deeply religious beliefs to take decisions that might shorten a terminally-ill patient’s life, according to research.
See the research article at Journal of Medical Ethics:
Findings Specialists in care of the elderly were somewhat more likely to be Hindu or Muslim than other doctors; palliative care specialists were somewhat more likely to be Christian, religious and ‘white’ than others. Ethnicity was largely unrelated to rates of reporting ethically controversial decisions. Independently of speciality, doctors who described themselves as non-religious were more likely than others to report having given continuous deep sedation until death, having taken decisions they expected or partly intended to end life, and to have discussed these decisions with patients judged to have the capacity to participate in discussions. Speciality was independently related to wide variations in the reporting of decisions taken with some intent to end life, with doctors in ‘other hospital’ specialities being almost 10 times as likely to report this when compared with palliative medicine specialists, regardless of religious faith.
Conclusions Greater acknowledgement of the relationship of doctors’ values with clinical decision-making is advocated.
Acknowledge links via Sydney Anglican Media.
See Is euthanasia a morally acceptable way to ease the suffering of the elderly?
