Falcón J L, Graciela Alvarez M
Servicio de Medicina Interna de la Clínica y Maternidad Suizo Argentina, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Medicina (B Aires). 1996;56(4):369-77.
Euthanasia and other medical decisions concerning the end of life (MDEL) have been poorly developed in the Argentine medical literature. On that basis, and presuming that MDEL occur frequently in the medical practice in our country (in spite of insufficient pre and postgraduate medical education on the matter), we have developed a survey on MDEL. It was conformed by a 13 multiple-choice question poll, which was answered by 172 physicians from Buenos Aires, suburban locations and La Plata. The questionnaire began with a professional profile and subsequently developed questions on medical, legal, ethical, religious and sociologic aspects of MDEL. The questions were based on the main or more frequent topics referred to MDEL, according to the medical literature between 1989 and 1994, researched through Medline. The poll was anonymous. Most of the questions could be answered based on the physician's attitudes toward MDEL; some required specific knowledge on the subject (as in the questions on legal matters). Three different MDEL were defined for this survey: active Euthanasia, Passive Euthanasia and Relief of Symptoms. Results showed that MDEL are frequent (69%) of the physicians have performed Relief of Symptoms, 58% Passive Euthanasia, and 7% Active Euthanasia) and that the physician's knowledge on the subject is poor and sparse. We concluded that more research on MDEL is needed in Argentina in order to support changes in medical education and legal background.
安乐死及其他有关生命终结的医疗决策（MDEL）在阿根廷医学文献中的研究尚不完善。基于此，并假定MDEL在我国医疗实践中频繁出现（尽管在该问题上医学本科及研究生教育不足），我们开展了一项关于MDEL的调查。该调查由一份包含13个多项选择题的问卷组成，来自布宜诺斯艾利斯、周边地区和拉普拉塔的172名医生回答了问卷。问卷首先介绍了专业背景，随后提出了关于MDEL的医学、法律、伦理、宗教和社会学方面的问题。这些问题基于1989年至1994年间通过Medline检索到的医学文献中提及的MDEL的主要或更常见主题。该调查为匿名调查。大多数问题可根据医生对MDEL的态度来回答；有些问题需要关于该主题的特定知识（如法律问题方面的问题）。本次调查定义了三种不同的MDEL：主动安乐死、被动安乐死和症状缓解。结果显示，MDEL很常见（69%的医生实施过症状缓解，58%实施过被动安乐死，7%实施过主动安乐死），且医生对该主题的知识匮乏且零散。我们得出结论，阿根廷需要对MDEL开展更多研究，以支持医学教育和法律背景的变革。
