ABSTRACT
Historically, medicine has been opposed to legalised euthanasia. The general public has a differing view and is increasingly vocal about the deficient care of the dying. Palliative medicine, psychiatry and general practice are starting to more studiously consider the complexities of these issues. Euthanasia is killing on request. Physician-assisted suicide is defined as ‘a doctor intentionally helping a person to commit suicide by providing drugs for self-administration, at the person’s voluntary and competent request’. The objectives for psychiatric involvement in euthanasia requests, as detailed by legislators in the respective countries, are to determine mental competency and to evaluate mental ill health. These are reasonable clinical tasks to be asked of psychiatry. However, in the terminally ill these are not simple and straightforward clinical determinations. The prevalence of psychological distress and psychiatric illness in the dying is high. Affectations of the brain and mind influence judgement and decision-making.
