KEY POINTS
Medical assistance in dying (MAiD) is now legal in many jurisdictions with strong public support, as well as some strong opposition, mostly on moral grounds. As more jurisdictions consider legalizing MAiD, policy-makers ask important questions about what drives people to request MAiD;
Despite fears that availability of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) for people without terminal illness would lead to requests for MAiD driven by socioeconomic deprivation or poor service availability (e.g., palliative care), available evidence consistently indicates that MAiD is most commonly received by people of high socioeconomic status and lower support needs, and those with high involvement of palliative care.
Increasing the availability of palliative and psychotherapeutic interventions should be a priority, but is unlikely to affect the incidence of MAiD because most MAiD recipients already have access to these interventions, and they have only modest effectiveness for the type of suffering that drives MAiD requests.
Whether the aim is to reduce the use of MAiD or to reduce suffering among those who are dying, more effective and scalable interventions are needed to manage distress among those nearing the end of life, as well as a better understanding of the complex factors that drive patient choices at the end of life.
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