Eutanasi / Dödshjälp : en litteraturstudie ur patientens synvinkel

Sammanfattning:   Background: Euthanasia means help to die. Some terminally ill patients wish for euthanasia. Purpose: Illuminating terminally ill patients' desire for voluntary euthanasia. Method: A general literature study. Seven articles were reviewed and analyzed. Results: Patients do not want to live a painful life or die a painful death, patients want control over their lives and feel involved in decisions affecting their lives and the patients want to feel quality of life despite their illness or treatment. The result showed that pain, loss of control and lost quality of life were the major reasons for the terminally ill patients’ wish for euthanasia. Discussion: To understand why these patients wished for euthanasia there was a need to go to the root causes. Pain was the major cause of desire for euthanasia and needs to be illuminated as it was the basis for the two other discoveries, quality of life and control over the patients’ lives. Conclusion: To get terminally ill patients pain-free and meet their individual health needs can change their wish for euthanasia.