Argentinian validation of the attitudes Towards Euthanasia Scale.

Abstract

Introduction: Although euthanasia is an issue on the Argentinean parliamentary agenda, there is still confusion about its conceptualisation and limitations to its study. Attitudes towards euthanasia among the seriously ill remain under-researched. We aimed to validate the Attitudes Towards Euthanasia scale in Argentina by cross-culturally adapting to the Spanish-Argentine language and exploring psychometric characteristics.

Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study used the Attitudes Toward Euthanasia Scale on a non-probabilistic sample of short-life expectancy patients. We selected Argentina's sample from seven healthcare centres to recruit a broad socio-demographic spectrum of patients. Inclusion criteria were patients with advanced disease, over 18 years of age, aware that the disease was probably incurable, and able to sign an informed consent form.

Results: The selected sample comprised 167 very sick patients. Among them, 72.5% had cancer. The average age of the participants was 68 (SD= 14.03), and 50.9% were female; 34.7% held university degrees; 58.7% reported being affiliated with a religious organisation. The scale's psychometric properties, including reliability and validity, were assessed using an exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The internal consistency throughout Cronbach's Alpha was 0.837. The range of items of homogeneity was from 0.179 to 0.745. The study found no significant differences in perceptions concerning euthanasia between variables such as diagnosis, gender, university studies level, and religious affiliation.

Discussion: The validation of the Attitudes Towards Euthanasia scale to a sample of seriously ill Argentinean patients has shown adequate psychometric properties, with some limitations.