TY - JOUR
T1 - Medical students' attitudes regarding the use of life-sustaining treatments for themselves and for elderly persons
AU - Carmel, Sara
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements--The study on the elderly was supported by a grant from the U.S.-ISRAEL Binational Science Foundation (BSF No. 92-00114). The author gratefully acknowledges this support.
PY - 1998/2/1
Y1 - 1998/2/1
N2 - This study investigated students' wishes regarding the use of life-sustaining treatments (LST) in different health conditions compared with their evaluations of the wishes of elderly people, and with reports of a group of elderly people about themselves. Data were collected from two consecutive classes of first year medical students (n = 101), and a random sample of Israeli elderly aged 70+ (n = 987) who responded to fixed-choice questions regarding their will to live and wishes for three kinds of LST in a number of hypothetical illness conditions. The students were also asked to assess elderly's wishes. Students ranked the will to live of elderly persons significantly lower than their own. The elderly ranked their will to live significantly lower than did the students, but higher than the students assumed about them, indicating that although the will to live is weaker among older people, it is stronger than young persons believe. With regard to the use of LST, students believe that old people want less LST than themselves, but the elderly want even less LST than assumed by the students. The best predictors of students' wishes for themselves were fear of dying and religiosity. Fear of dying, the students' selfesteem and religiosity were the best predictors of their evaluations of the elderly's wishes. The results indicate that both the elderly and the students have a relatively strong will to live, but this desire is dependent on quality of life. The implications of this study for medical education are discussed.
AB - This study investigated students' wishes regarding the use of life-sustaining treatments (LST) in different health conditions compared with their evaluations of the wishes of elderly people, and with reports of a group of elderly people about themselves. Data were collected from two consecutive classes of first year medical students (n = 101), and a random sample of Israeli elderly aged 70+ (n = 987) who responded to fixed-choice questions regarding their will to live and wishes for three kinds of LST in a number of hypothetical illness conditions. The students were also asked to assess elderly's wishes. Students ranked the will to live of elderly persons significantly lower than their own. The elderly ranked their will to live significantly lower than did the students, but higher than the students assumed about them, indicating that although the will to live is weaker among older people, it is stronger than young persons believe. With regard to the use of LST, students believe that old people want less LST than themselves, but the elderly want even less LST than assumed by the students. The best predictors of students' wishes for themselves were fear of dying and religiosity. Fear of dying, the students' selfesteem and religiosity were the best predictors of their evaluations of the elderly's wishes. The results indicate that both the elderly and the students have a relatively strong will to live, but this desire is dependent on quality of life. The implications of this study for medical education are discussed.
KW - Doctor-patient relations
KW - Elderly
KW - Life-sustaining treatments
KW - Medical education
KW - Medical students
KW - Will to live
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0032007902&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/S0277-9536(97)00191-3
DO - 10.1016/S0277-9536(97)00191-3
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0032007902
SN - 0277-9536
VL - 46
SP - 467
EP - 474
JO - Social Science and Medicine
JF - Social Science and Medicine
IS - 4-5
ER -