Program
Physician Assistant M.S.
Year Approved
2018
First Advisor
Szarzynski, Jeanne
Abstract
Having the choice to hasten death via physician assisted suicide (PAS) is becoming increasingly more popular in the United States. The majority of states do not yet have laws that legalize PAS, but many, including Minnesota, are currently entertaining legislation to allow PAS as an end-of-life option if a person is over the age of 18 and has a terminal illness with only six months to live. To date, little research has been done to evaluate the attitudes about PAS in the Minnesota general population. The goal of this study was to determine whether demographics, namely, age, gender, educational level, and religiosity have an effect on the attitudes of the Minnesota general population toward PAS. Data was collected using both printed and online surveys that were distributed to various participant sources in an attempt to obtain a sample representing the general population of Minnesota. The study revealed religiosity and education level affected participants' attitudes toward PAS, but age group and gender rarely, if at all, affected participants' attitudes toward PAS.
Degree Name
Masters of Science in Physician Assistant
Document Type
Masterʼs thesis
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Bretscher, J. M., & Estrem, T. J. (2018). Physician Assisted Suicide: Attitudes of the Minnesota General Population [Masterʼs thesis, Bethel University]. Spark Repository. https://spark.bethel.edu/etd/89