Gidni 2 Psychology and Education Sciences 65 Attitudes on Euthanasia among Medical Students, Social Worker Students and Young Resident Physicians in Romania

The present paper examines the attitudes of young physicians, medical students as well as social worker students in Romania towards euthanasia. After establishing the concept of euthanasia, the author continues by describing the situation of euthanasia in Romania. They shall present the present legislation (the new Criminal Code introduced in February 2014) and, in light of the results of a study, the attitudes which the young professionals as well as university students who were queried have about euthanasia. Based on the answers, it seems that outright prohibition is not in line with the opinions of the surveyed young population, since a significant majority of the aforementioned research subjects would consider merciful death acceptable. The study is quantitative, with a questionnaire having been administered to 223 subjects. Based on the results, medical students are relatively informed about the topic, and among the three groups mentioned, they have the most liberal approach to euthanasia. More than half of those queried would support euthanasia. We have also succeeded in identifying certain determining factors that could have a role in the attitude towards euthanasia, such as religious faith. Practicing physicians are somewhat more reserved with regard to euthanasia than students, which is presumably the result of experience in the field and responsibility. At the same time, it has also been determined that the attitudes of social workers are more conservative concerning euthanasia. The prediction of previous scholarly literature about the acceptance of euthanasia gaining ground has now become measurable even in Romania.