Withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment: a comparative study of the ethical reasoning of physicians and the general public

Table 4 Responses regarding whether to administer tranquillizers and morphine

Argument	Doctors/public	Percentage (CI)	Priority (%)
Tranquillizers and morphine should be provided in order to keep the patient free of symptom even though it might hasten death	Doctors General public	97.6 (95.8–99.4) 95.9 (94.2–97.6)	94.4% 76.2%
Tranquillizers and morphine should be provided in order to shorten the dying process	Doctors General public	9.9 (6.4–13.4) 45.7 (41.3–50.1)	0.7% 5.8%
Tranquillizers and morphine should be provided but without risking the acceleration of death	Doctors General public	29.6 (24.3–34.9) 49.2 (44.8–53.6)	1.9% 12.2%
Tranquillizers and morphine should not be provided if the purpose is to hasten the dying process	Doctors General public	72.7 (66.5–77.9) 52.0 (47.6–56.4)	3.0% 5.8%

This table shows the response pattern of the doctors and members of the general public who answered the question regarding whether to provide tranquillizers and morphine to a terminally ill patient disconnected from life-sustaining ventilator treatment. The results are presented as proportions of those who agreed 'mostly' or 'entirely', with a 95% confidence interval (CI). The percentages of those who considered the argument to be the most important are also presented.

ISSN: 1364-8535