Attitudes toward the Legalization of Euthanasia or Physician-Assisted Suicide in South Korea: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Young Ho Yun, Jin-Ah Sim, Yeani Choi and Hyejeong Yoon
Additional contact information
Young Ho Yun: Department of Human Systems Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul 03080, Korea
Jin-Ah Sim: School of AI Convergence, Hallym University, Chuncheon 200160, Korea
Yeani Choi: Department of Human Systems Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul 03080, Korea
Hyejeong Yoon: Department of Human Systems Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul 03080, Korea

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 9, 1-10

Abstract: This study aimed to investigate the general South Korean public attitudes toward the legalization of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (EAS) and examine the reasons underpinning these attitudes. From March–April 2021, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of a representative national sample of 1000 South Koreans aged 19 years or older. Three in four participants (76.4%) expressed positive attitudes toward the legalization of EAS. Participants who agreed with this legalization reported “meaninglessness of the rest of life” and “right to a good death” as their main reasons. Participants who disagreed with the legalization of EAS reported “respect for life”, “violation of the right to self-determination”, “risk of abuse or overuse”, and “violation of human rights” as theirs. In the multivariate logistic regression analyses, participants with poor physical status (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 1.41, 95%; confidence interval [CI]: 1.02–1.93) or comorbidity (aOR: 1.84, 95%; CI: 1.19–2.83) showed positive attitudes toward the legalization of EAS. In summary, most of the general South Korean population regards the legalization of EAS positively, especially participants with poor physical status or comorbidity.

Keywords: euthanasia; physician-assisted suicide; legalization; attitudes; general population (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5183/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5183/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:9:p:5183-:d:801277

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().