On of data in peer-reviewed journals only and the destruction of any information linking respondents with their responses. Several more comments reflected a few of the troubles faced by CL-82198 site medical doctors when generating decisions about end-of-life practices. The following comments reflect the ethical tightrope that doctors could stroll to act inside (albeit close to) the boundaries of the law on the one hand and compassionately look at their patients’ desires and best interests on the other:I’d not say that withdrawing treatment iswas intended to hasten the end of a patient’s life, but rather to not prolong it to minimize suffering. Some wouldn’t answer the queries above honestly as there’s a incredibly fine line in between compassion and caring and negligent and illegal behaviour.DISCUSSION Most doctors taking component inside the survey indicated that, in general, they would be prepared to supply sincere answers to concerns about practices in caring for sufferers at the end of their lives: more than three-quarters of respondents indicated they could be regularly prepared to provide sincere answers to a variety of questions on end-of-life practices. Willingness was greater for queries where the potential dangers were likely to become reduce, but in scenarios explicitly involving euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, somewhere among a third and half of respondents wouldn’t be willing to report honestly (table two). There also seemed to become a modest distinction involving responses to question two (table 2) about withdrawing remedy together with the explicit intention of hastening death and question 1 about actively prescribing drugs using the very same intention, presumably reflecting the distinction that is normally made among acts and omissions, although the law in New Zealand makes no such distinction where the intention will be to hasten death.21 In questions 3 and 6, the willingness to provide truthful answers decreased as references for the intention to hasten death became extra explicit, presumably reflecting an enhanced threat that the latter actions could be regarded as illegal if investigated. The pattern of responses to queries inside the present study was essentially equivalent to responses in the preceding pilot study that sampled registered medical doctors in the UK.18 This pattern was evident when comparing responses to inquiries about end-of-life practices and also with regard towards the `honesty score’ data–the percentage of UK physicians consistently prepared to supply honest answers was 72 (compared with our study’s 77.five ), plus the proportion scoring the maximum was approximately half in each case (52.three vs 51.1 in our study). An observation that emerged from our information was that GPs could be a lot more cautious in their reporting of end-of-life practices than hospital specialists: GPs scored significantly less on the general `honesty score’ (ie, they have been less regularly willing to supply honest answers) and in distinct have been significantly less likely than hospital specialists to supply honest answers to inquiries about end-of-life practices involving the withdrawal or withholding of treatment. Our findings align with those of Minogue et al22 who showed that PubMed ID:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21330032 the perception of vulnerability to litigation looms high within the minds of some GPs and GP registrars in New Zealand. Such perceptions may well plausibly result in much more reticence in the reporting of end-of-lifeMerry AF, Moharib M, Devcich DA, et al. BMJ Open 2013;3:e002598. doi:ten.1136bmjopen-2013-NZ doctors’ willingness to offer sincere answers about end-of-life practices practic.