Vetnews | Mei 2026 24 « BACK TO CONTENTS Euthanasia of animals.... <<< 23 Article survey was also disseminated through social media, both by the first author and by the Norwegian Veterinary Association. Five gift cards from a sports shop were drawn among the respondents of the survey to increase the response rate. The researchers did not know the identities of the participants. This study was approved by the Regional Committees for Medical Research Ethics South East Norway (132704) and the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (674793). Instruments Dependent variable – research questions 1 and 2 Attitudes towards assisted dying were investigated using four statements previously used on physicians in Norway [12], namely: 1) ‘Physicianassisted suicide should be permitted for persons suffering from a fatal disease with a short remaining life expectancy’; 2) ‘Euthanasia should be permitted for persons suffering from a fatal disease with a short remaining life expectancy’; 3) ‘Assisted dying should be permitted also for persons suffering from an incurable chronic disease, but who are not dying’; and 4) ‘There are cases in which it may be right/morally defensible for the doctor to provide assisted dying, even though it is illegal’. The veterinarians were asked to state their agreement on a Likert scale from 1–5, ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’. For research question 1, we investigated the level of agreement with each statement. Definitions of the terms assisted dying, physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia were included in the questionnaire. Veterinarians routinely perform animal euthanasia, while the prescription of medicinal products that animal owners can give to their animals is not common practice (in which the latter would be the parallel to physician-assisted suicide in humans). Therefore, we chose the second statement regarding attitudes towards euthanasia in humans as the dependent variable for research question 2, as this would be the procedure veterinarians have the most experience with through their work. The variable was dichotomised so that ‘agreed’ included both ‘strongly agree’ and ‘partially agree’, to make clear the distinction of those having positive attitudes towards the statement. ‘Disagree’ encompasses the remaining alternative responses (‘neither agree, nor disagree’, ‘partially disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree)’, in line with a previous study [12]. Dependent variable – research question 3 Paykel’s questionnaire is a five-item instrument developed to study suicidal thoughts and attempts. The five items represent increasing severity, from unspecific suicidal feelings, and a wish to die, to suicidal thoughts, serious suicidal thoughts (plans), and suicide attempt [26]. Serious suicidal thoughts were used as the dependent variable for research question 3. The question was a slightly modified version of the fourth question of Paykel’s questionnaire [24, 26]: ‘Have you ever during the last year reached the point where you seriously considered taking your life, and even made plans how you would go about doing it?’ The responses were ‘never’, ‘hardly ever’, ‘sometimes’, and ‘often’. Responses were dichotomised into ‘never’ and ‘any frequency’, in line with Paykel’s original work. Paykel’s question number four has been used as the dependent variable in several studies across multiple professions in Norway previously, including veterinarians [16, 27, 28]. Exposure variables The participants reported the following as their main fields of work: ‘companion animal practice’, ‘production animal practice’, ‘mixed clinical practice’, ‘equine practice’, ‘aquaculture’, ‘public administration’, ‘academia/research’, ‘pensioners’, and ‘other’ [16]. In the regression analyses, ‘mixed clinical practice’ was chosen as the reference category, as this could be viewed as the most traditional veterinary work in Norway. Since work-related factors were included in the model, pensioners were excluded from the regression analyses. Field of work was used as an exposure variable for research questions 2 and 3. Frequency of Euthanising animals was measured using a single item: ‘If you work in clinical practice, how many euthanasia procedures do you perform on average in a normal week?’ Responses were categorised as follows; 0–4, 5–9, 10–14, and 15 or more. Due to low numbers in the latter three categories, the variable was dichotomised into 0–4/week and 5 or more/week. The total proportion of missing data on this instrument was 36%. This is probably due to the question being directed to veterinarians working in clinical practice. In our sample, however, many veterinarians work in non-clinical fields. After cross-tabulating the frequency of euthanasia with the different fields of work, it was evident that the majority of the missing answers to this question was among veterinarians in non-clinical positions, with a missing rate of 73% in aquaculture, 90% in public administration, 72% in academia/research, and 78% in other fields. Most veterinarians in these fields do not routinely perform euthanasia. Therefore, this lack of response was recoded to category ‘0–4’, as this seemed to be the most likely reason for the high proportion of missing answers in these fields of work. After recoding, the proportion of missing data was 2.9% for this instrument, which is acceptable. Veterinarians’ frequency of Euthanising animals was used as an exposure variable in research questions 2 and 3. Confounders The use of age intervals was encouraged by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data to keep collected data as unidentifiable as possible. Age was therefore reported in the following intervals: 20–25, 26–30 (…) up to 66–70, and > 70 years old. These age categories were entered as continuous variables in the regression models. Marital status was dichotomised into married/cohabitant and single/divorced/separated/widowed. Gender, age, and marital status were included as possible confounders in research questions 2 and 3. In addition to gender, age, and marital status, the self-reported average number of working hours per week was used as a measure of workload in research question 3. Attitudes towards euthanasia in humans could be a possible confounder for serious suicidal thoughts, as well as for euthanasia of animals. A previous study among veterinarians found a significant positive correlation between attitudes towards human euthanasia and suicide [7]. Although scarcely studied, veterinarians’ positive attitudes towards euthanasia in humans may also influence attitudes towards animal euthanasia, possibly leading to a higher frequency of euthanasia of animals compared to the frequency among those with a negative attitude towards human euthanasia.
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