A Comparison of Attitudes Toward Euthanasia Among Medical Students at Two Polish Universities

# The Author(s) 2012. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract The aim of the study conducted upon completion of obligatory palliative medicine courses among 588 medical students at two universities was to compare their attitudes toward euthanasia. Four hundred ninety-two (84.97 %) stu-dents were Catholics; 69 (11.73 %) declared they would prac-tice euthanasia, 303 (51.53 %) would not, and 216 students (36.73 %) were not sure. The idea of euthanasia legalisation was supported by 174 (29.59 %) respondents, opposed by 277 (47.11 %), and 137 (23.30 %) were undecided. Five hundred fifty-six (94.56 %) students did not change their attitudes toward euthanasia after palliative medicine courses. Students from the two universities were found to have different opinions on practicing euthanasia, euthanasia law and possible abuse which might follow euthanasia legalisation, but they shared similar views on the choice of euthanasia if they themselves were incurably ill and the legalisation of euthanasia. Gender and religion influenced students ’ answers. Differences ob-served between medical students at the two universities might be related to gender and cultural differences