Americans increasingly believe physicians should do everything in their power to keep terminally ill patients alive, indicating a shift in opinion on end-of-life care, according to new data from a Pew Research Center survey.
In 1990, only 15 percent of adults said physicians should do everything possible to save a patient in all circumstances. That number increased to 22 percent in 2005 and 31 percent in 2013.
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Here are 15 more statistics on Americans' views of end-of-life care.
• In 2013, 66 percent of Americans said there are some cases in which a patient should be allowed to die, falling from 70 percent in 2005 and 73 percent in 1990.
• Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they would want stop treatment so they could die if they had an incurable disease and were suffering from pain. Thirty-five percent said they would want the physician to do everything possible to save their life.
• Fifty-two percent said they would want to stop treatment if they had an incurable disease and were dependent on somebody else to live. Thirty-seven percent would want the physician to do everything possible to save their life.
• Sixty-two percent of adults said a person has a moral right to suicide if he or she is suffering great pain and there is no hope for improvement. In 1990, 55 percent of adults shared this opinion.
• Americans are almost evenly split on physician-assisted suicide with 49 percent disapproving of it and 47 percent approving of it.
• White mainline Protestants, white evangelical Protestants and white Catholics are more likely to stop treatment if they had an incurable disease than black Protestants and Hispanic Catholics.
• Thirty-seven percent of adults said they have given "a great deal of thought" to their end-of-life medical treatment. Thirty-five percent have given it some thought, and 27 percent have given it little to no thought.
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