Psychologists are expected to play a more active role in requests for medically assisted death (euthanasia and assisted suicide), a topic that is back on the Assembly of the Republic’s agenda today.
A study coordinated by Miguel Ricou, a researcher at CINTESIS – Center for Health Technology and Services Research and professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (FMUP), shows that psychologists may assume several indispensable functions in the context of early death.
For Miguel Ricou, the psychologists will be central, for example, in the counseling of the patient, families, and health professionals and in the assessment of the patient’s competence.
“Psychologists must take a role in assessing the capacity of patients and the consistency of their requests for early death. The decision to die is irreversible and, therefore, must correspond to the person’s true will. There should be as few mistakes as possible when evaluating a request for euthanasia and assisted suicide ”, he says.
According to Miguel Ricou, “it does not make sense that anyone who asks for euthanasia does not have the opportunity to discuss this even with someone specialized in guiding people in their decision making”.
In his opinion, it will also be up to psychologists to assume the role of “advocates for patients”, ensuring that their needs are met. “Psychologists have an ethical responsibility to protect the patient’s autonomy and their right to make a conscious and informed decision”, he continues.
In addition, it stresses that psychologists must bridge the gap between patients, family members and health professionals and provide them with the necessary support on emotional and ethical issues.
To play all these roles, Miguel Ricou considers that psychologists should do research in the area and receive specialized training. “It is necessary to invest in scientific studies that allow us to understand how end-of-life decisions are made and whether they are stable or if they vary over time”, he stresses.
Finally, the Bioethics expert draws attention to the need to be able to influence the discussion of the law on euthanasia, in order to ensure the existence of interdisciplinary teams and the effective participation of psychologists in this context.
Currently, voluntary euthanasia is legal in Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Uruguay, and Colombia, and assisted suicide can be practiced in Switzerland, Germany, the Australian state of Victoria, and eight states in the USA.
In Portugal, the decriminalization of medically assisted death (euthanasia and assisted suicide) was generally approved on February 20 of this year, in the Assembly of the Republic (AR), having been sent to the Constitutional Affairs Committee for discussion and voting on the specialty.
This Thursday, June 18, the matter was back on Parliament’s agenda, with a meeting of theWorking Group on “Decriminalization of Medically Assisted Death”, of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees, and with a hearing by Ferro Rodrigues of the Popular Referendum Initiative “The (De)criminalization of Death upon request”.
This article has as its first author Sílvia Marina, from FMUP and CINTESIS, Tony Wainwright, from the University of Exeter, in the United Kingdom, and Miguel Ricou, and it has been published in the International Journal of Psychology.