Nurses knowledge and attitudes about euthanasia at national and international level: A review of the literature

Abstract

AimTo review the available evidence on nurses’ attitudes to and knowledge about euthanasia. MethodsA literature review was carried out in the databases: PubMed (including Medline), CINAHL, Scopus, PsycINFO, Web of Science and CUIDEN, with inclusive terms of nurses’ attitudes and knowledge regarding euthanasia both nationally and internationally. The selection criteria were articles in Spanish, English, Catalan or French published from January 2012 to September 2019 and studies that analysed the nurses’ attitudes and knowledge regarding euthanasia and articles that were full available for analysis. ResultsInitially a total of 566 articles were found, and finally 8 met the inclusion criteria of the research question in the review. The total number of nurses participating in the studies was 3,571. Most of the nurses, both at international and national level, have a positive attitude towards the legalization of euthanasia; however, all studies report a lack in nurses’ knowledge on the specific theme of euthanasia. DiscussionThe results show that nurses describe their attitude as positive towards the practice of euthanasia. In terms of knowledge, nurses reported the need to have more specific training on this subject is conclusive. In addition, this review provides a global and current vision that can serve as a necessary starting point for further work and progress in nurse training and for future research.