The purposes of this study were to identify the attitudes of family members whose patients were confined in bed with almost dying conditions and to identify and test various factors which are closely related to attitudes of family members toward euthanasia for their almost dying patients.
This study hypothesized that age, religion and education of the family members, monthly household income, methods of supplying medical expenses, the role of this particular patient in family, family member´s awareness about the death expectation of his or her patient, hospitalization duration and frequency, the harmonic adjustment of family members would be related to the
attitudes of family members toward euthanasia for the almost dying patient.
The thirty-five cases were interviewed with questionnaire whose patients were critically ill and considered almost dying at Chungnam National University Hospital, Chungnam Seung-Mo Hospital and Seoul National University Hospital at the period from August 17 to October 20, 1983.
The findings obtained from this study were as follows:
1. Euthanasia attitude scale and family environmental scale showed high internal consistency reliability.
2. Attitudes of family members of this particular patient toward euthanasia were approximately to positive direction.
3. Monthly household income, methods of supplying medical expenses, family relation between the family member and patient, hospitalization duration and frequency and the harmonic adjustment of family members were identified as significantly related to attitudes of family members
toward euthanasia and the amount of variance of each variable or total variance accounts significantly.
4. The rest of the factors such as age, religion, education, awareness of death expectation and the role of the particular patient in family did not consistently influence the attitude toward euthanasia in this particular case at significant level.
In the view point of the results from this study, it could be recommended for nurses to consider the above mentioned significant factors influencing the attitude toward euthanasia when they administer ´nursing process´ for the almost dying patient and his or her family members.
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