It is now standard practice to use the term assisted dying for both euthanasia and assisted suicide (1, 2). In this study, euthanasia is defined as a doctor intentionally causing a person's death by administering lethal drugs at the patient's request. Physician-assisted suicide refers to a doctor helping someone take their own life by prescribing a lethal drug that the person can take themselves. Assisted dying must be distinguished from non-treatment decisions, which refers to withholding or withdrawing treatment in seriously ill patients (2). Assisted dying is illegal in Norway, but the question of legalisation is the subject of ongoing public debate (3, 4).
The Netherlands and Belgium legalised assisted dying in 2002. Since then, many European countries' legislative bodies have debated legalisation. Spain and Austria recently adopted laws legalising assisted dying, and in autumn 2024, England and Wales decided to proceed with a proposed law on physician-assisted suicide. Other countries, such as Finland, have rejected proposals for legalisation (5, 6).
In the spring of 2025, several political parties in Norway discussed legalising assisted dying (7). The Progress Party (Frp) has formally endorsed legalisation, while the Liberal Party (Venstre) formally supports a study. Support for the legalisation of assisted dying appears to have grown in Norway (8), as is the case in most Western European countries (9).
Doctors' attitudes to assisted dying are likely an important factor in the political debate, as they are typically expected to play a key role in determining eligibility and carrying out the process. The Norwegian Medical Association is opposed to assisted dying. The Code of Ethics for Doctors, adopted by the Norwegian Medical Association's Representative Body, states that 'doctors shall not perform assisted dying' (I, Section 5). In 2022, nine doctors requested that the Norwegian Medical Association adopt a neutral stance on the issue (10). The Council for Medical Ethics reviewed the matter, and the Executive Board decided not to change the Association's stance.
Views on assisted dying among doctors in Norway were last surveyed in 2016 (11). At that time, most doctors were opposed to legalisation. The lowest level of opposition was for physician-assisted suicide in patients with 'a terminal illness and short life expectancy', where 47.3 % of respondents strongly disagreed and 9.1 % strongly agreed with legalisation. Support for legalisation was much lower for other clinical contexts. Younger and non-religious doctors were more likely to support legalisation. Doctors are more strongly opposed to legalisation than the general population (12). In a survey of nurses' attitudes, respondents were more in favour of legalisation than doctors but less so than the general population (13). However, the survey was not representative of the entire nursing population.
In surveys of attitudes to assisted dying in Norway, respondents are now typically allowed to express their views with greater nuance in two ways – an approach we also employ in our study. First, they can indicate the level of support and opposition on a five-point scale, from 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree'. Second, they can state whether they support legalisation for a selection of clinical contexts. We aimed to examine doctors' current attitudes to assisted dying and the extent to which these may have changed between 2016 and 2024.