Twenty five years of requests for euthanasia and physician assisted suicide in Dutch general practice: trend analysis

Concerns have been expressed that the Dutch policy on euthanasia (E) and physician assisted suicide (PAS) may lead to an exponential increase in the number of requests and use. 1 Many Dutch general practitioners, nursing home physicians, and pharmacists have a fairly positive attitude and have become more tolerant over the years. 2 We investigated the effect of increasing acceptance on the number of and underlying reasons for requests for E/PAS in Dutch general practice from 1977 to 2001.