Assessing the Knowledge and Attitude Regarding Euthanasia among Undergraduate Students in Some Selected Colleges of Nepalgunj, Banke; Nepal

Background: Euthanasia is the deliberate killing of a person for his/her benefit. The word euthanasia comes from the Greek words: �eu�- �good� and �thanatos�-�death�. Thus, euthanasia means good death or easy death. It is identified as �the merciful hastening of death, often limited to willful and merciful actions to kill one who is injured or terminally ill. � Objective: The aim of this research study was to assess the knowledge and attitude regarding euthanasia among undergraduate students in some selected colleges of Nepalgunj, Banke, Province number 5; Nepal. Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional research design was applied for the study and entirely based on primary data collected through structured questionnaire. Non-probability convenience sampling technique was used to select 100 undergraduate students from the selected colleges of Nepalgunj, Banke and structured questionnaire was administered to the selected students to collect the data for assessing the knowledge and attitude regarding euthanasia among undergraduate students. The collected data was analyzed through descriptive as well as inferential statistics using SPSS software (version 21). The descriptive analysis was performed using frequencies, percentage etc. and for the inferential part of the study, chi-square test (^2-test) was used. Results: The results of the study revealed that more than quarter of the respondents 26 (26.0 %) had poor knowledge, 16 (16.0 %) of the respondents had average knowledge and more than half of the respondents 58 (58.0 %) had good knowledge regarding euthanasia. Likewise, most of the respondents 87 (87.0 %) had unfavourable attitude, only 1 (1.0 %) of the respondents had neutral attitude and 12 (12.0 %) respondents had favourable attitude regarding euthanasia. The association between level of knowledge and attitude with the selected socio-demographic variables of undergraduate students using chi-square test revealed that there is significant association between the level of knowledge and age, gender, marital status, monthly family income, field of study and source of information. However, there was no statistically significant association between the level of attitude towards euthanasia and all selected socio-demographic variables other than field of study. Conclusion: The findings of the study conclude that undergraduate students have good level of knowledge but unfavourable attitude towards euthanasia.