Should disagreement about physician-assisted suicide discourage professional societies from engaging in public debate? A survey of 677 Connecticut internists.
OBJECTIVE
To determine whether physicians within a state-level professional association who disagree about the ethics of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) also disagree about organized professional engagement in public discussions regarding PAS.


METHODS
Anonymous mail questionnaire.


METHODS
Connecticut members of the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine as of February 1999.


METHODS
Attitudes toward the legalization of PAS and organized participation in public discussions about PAS, and demographic and religious characteristics.


RESULTS
The mean age of 677 respondents was 51 years and 20% were women. The legalization of PAS was favored by 28% of respondents, and opposed by 53%, but 84% favored organized participation in appropriate public discussions regarding PAS. Differences in religious affiliation were strongly associated with disagreements about PAS: physicians with Jewish affiliation or no affiliation were more likely to favor legalizing PAS than those with Catholic or other Christian affiliations (45%, 38%, 14%, and 19%, respectively, P < .001). Religious affiliation was not associated with differences in attitude toward organized participation in public discussions about PAS. Statistically significant differences in attitude toward public participation were found between some subgroups according to differing attitudes toward PAS, but in each case at least 80% of physicians still supported participation.


CONCLUSIONS
Internists in this state-level organization widely supported organized participation in public discussions regarding PAS despite disagreements about its legalization, and support for organized participation was not affected by differences in religious affiliation nor substantially attenuated by differences in attitudes toward PAS.
Kaldjian
Lauris C
LC
Department of Internal Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, USA.
Jekel
James F
JF
Bernene
James L
JL
Rosenthal
Gary E
GE
Vaughan-Sarrazin
Mary
M
Duffy
Thomas P
TP
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003142:Communication; D003237:Connecticut; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*; D011640:Public Policy; D011641:Public Relations; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D012955:Societies, Medical; D017236:Suicide, Assisted / Q000941:ethics* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires