Assisted suicide: Perception of nursing students about professional performance on this topic

Introduction: Assisted suicide is considered an action in which a patient, wishes to terminate his/her life due to the pain and suffering caused by a disease and requests the necessary help from the healthcare professionals. The right to decide about ending one’s own life and the impact attributed to the experienced suffering are the main questions regarding assisted suicide. Objective: Characterize the perceptions of nursing students about professional performance in the face of assisted suicide. Methods: The research comprised a descriptive analysis with a qualitative approach, based on the application of semi-structured interviews on nursing students enrolled in the curricular 9th period, during 2014, in the city of Recife-PE, Brazil. The sample consisted of 19 students. The data, were analyzed and categorized using the Collective Subject Discourse (CSD) method. Results and Discussion: The obtained data suggest that students consider assisted suicide as a way of preserving dignity in the face of procedures that will make the death an inevitably painful process. Indicate that euthanasia and assisted suicide should remain illegal, and they would not get involved professionally. But others assured their willingness to participate because they would be satisfying the patient's wishes, however, for its legalization it is necessary to create principles that would guide the execution of these procedures. Conclusion: The students consider, that the professional can eliminate real possibilities of treatment and recovery of the patient by accepting his request for suicide. However, some students are in favor of this procedure, arguing that the patient is free to conduct his own life.