Statistics Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Department of Surgery, Division of Urology, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada.
BMC Med Ethics. 2019 Apr 2;20(1):22. doi: 10.1186/s12910-019-0356-z.
Medical assistance in dying (MAID) was legalized in Canada in 2016. As of July 2017, approximately 2149 patients have accessed MAID. There remains no national-level data on the perspectives of future physicians about MAID or its changing legal status. We provide evidence from a national survey of Canadian medical students about their opinions, intentions, and concerns about MAID.
From October 2016 to July 2017, we distributed an anonymous online survey to all students at 15 of Canada's 17 medical schools. The survey collected data on respondent socio-demographic characteristics, features of their medical education, intentions for medical practice, and perspectives on MAID. We analyzed responses using univariate descriptive and stepwise multivariate logistic regression.
In 1210 completed surveys, 71% of respondents reported being willing to provide MAID under a legal framework that permits it. Non-religious respondents reported greater willingness to participate in MAID than respondents of any religious affiliation (p < 0.001). Frequency of religious attendance was inversely associated with willingness to provide MAID (p < 0.001). Medical students born in Québec were more willing to provide MAID than respondents from other provinces (OR 2.21; p < 0.001). Age, sex, socioeconomic status, year of medical study, previous academic major, and rural/urban city of birth were not associated with willingness to provide MAID.
As the current class of medical students becomes the first cohort of new physicians to enter Canada's changing medical and legal landscape around MAID, our findings inform the public debate by examining attributes associated with support or opposition to the practice.
2016 年，加拿大将医疗协助死亡（MAID）合法化。截至 2017 年 7 月，约有 2149 名患者获得了 MAID。目前，加拿大还没有关于未来医生对 MAID 或其不断变化的法律地位的看法的国家级数据。我们从一项对加拿大医学生的全国性调查中提供了证据，了解他们对 MAID 的看法、意图和担忧。
从 2016 年 10 月至 2017 年 7 月，我们向加拿大 17 所医学院中的 15 所的所有学生分发了一份匿名在线调查。该调查收集了有关受访者社会人口特征、医学教育特征、医疗实践意向和 MAID 观点的数据。我们使用单变量描述性和逐步多元逻辑回归分析了这些回复。
在 1210 份完成的调查中，71%的受访者表示愿意在允许的法律框架下提供 MAID。非宗教信仰的受访者比任何宗教信仰的受访者更愿意参与 MAID（p<0.001）。宗教信仰的频率与提供 MAID 的意愿呈反比（p<0.001）。在魁北克出生的医学生比来自其他省份的受访者更愿意提供 MAID（OR 2.21；p<0.001）。年龄、性别、社会经济地位、医学学习年限、以前的学术专业以及农村/城市的出生地与提供 MAID 的意愿无关。
随着当前这届医学生成为进入加拿大不断变化的医疗和法律环境的第一批新医生，我们的研究结果通过考察支持或反对该实践的相关属性，为公众辩论提供了信息。
