Fine vita: Indagine su scelte e percezioni tra la popolazione

Background Euthanasia consists of all those actions deliberately carried out by health professionals whose objective is to directly cause death at the express, voluntary and repeated request of a capable patient who presents intense physical and mental suffering following an irreversible disease and that himself experiences it as unacceptable. In many European and non-European countries, euthanasia and/or assisted suicide practices are legal, instead, in Italy, they constitute a crime and fall within the hypotheses punished by article 579 (Murder of the consenting person) or by article 580 (Instigating or assisting in suicide) of the Penal Code. On the contrary, the suspension of treatment constitutes an inviolable right pursuant to art. 32 of the Constitution and Law 219/2017. With the sentence 242/2019 of the Constitutional Court, in Italy it is possible to request medically assisted suicide, that is the indirect help of a doctor to die only in some precise conditions. The Law also provides for the possibility for each person to express their wishes regarding health treatments, as well as the consent or refusal of diagnostic tests and therapeutic choices. The purpose of the study was to understand what is the opinion and knowledge of the population about "euthanasia" ,"assisted suicide", "aggressive treatment", "palliative care"; detect if there is a difference between users who are facing a degenerative disease compared to those who are not affected by pathologies and understand what are the factors that influence potential end-of-life choices, or Advance Treatment Declarations (DAP) Materials and Methods Descriptive observational study developed by carrying out a bibliographic search by consulting databases such as PubMed and Cochrane to select and design the research questions and by administering the anonymous validated questionnaire, with prior informed consent, to a representative sample of the population. The tool used for data collection is made up of a personal data section concerning socio-demographic information, and a section containing the 16 items relating to knowledge and personal opinion on the topic under discussion. The interviews were conducted in the main influx points, waiting rooms, public relations office, of the various Departments of the Local Health Authority of AP with the prior authorization of the Health Department. On the other hand, the questionnaire developed with the Google Forms app was sent to associations of patients suffering from oncological or rare diseases and shared via links for social platforms. Data collection was carried out from January to May 2023. Data were processed with SPSS software. Results N= 344 questionnaires were analyzed with a distribution of respondents for 60.75% females (N=209) and 39.24% males (N=135). 51.16% not affected by pathologies VS 48.83% affected by a pathology. The prevalence of the disease was highest in the 41-60 age group (52.97%). 65% (N=165) subjects affected by pathology with reduced life expectancy have expressed their will to donate organs and tissues and 35% (N=57) have already drawn up a living will. From the analysis of the data it emerged that being in favor of euthanasia is significantly associated with the following variables: non-believer religious orientation (p < 0.001), male sex (p < 0.005) widowed marital status (p < 0.001), disability (p < 0.0023), absence of family caregiver (p < 0.0012) legal assisted status (p < 0.001) having suffered intense pain during a phase of one's life (n 185) (p < 0.005). On the other hand, nationalities were not correlated (N. 57) (p = 0.81) high level of education, (N.72), having assisted a family member in the terminal phase (N. 65) (p=0.32)