Volume 25, Issue 114, August 2021

Knowledge and attitudes toward Do-Not-Resuscitate decisions among medical students in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Haytham A Abbas¹, Asrar A Al Ahmadi^2♦, Osama Hameed G Alharby³, Rahf Ayman H Aman⁴, Elgawhara Faisal Awad Mohamed⁵, Nawaf Abdullah K Tawlah⁵

¹Critical care consultant, doctor sulimanfakeeh hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
²Ibn Sina National Collage, Faculty of Medicine, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
³University of Jeddah, Faculty of medicine, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
⁴Batterjee Medical College, faculty of medicine, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
⁵Fakeeh Medical College, Faculty of medicine, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

^♦Corresponding author
Ibn Sina National Collage, Faculty of Medicine, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

Objective: Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) order is made in certain situations where patients are terminally ill and CPR is not predictable to succeed. Furthermore, many controversial ethical challenges arise in the management of death because of patients’ religious and cultural background. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, KSA the DNR policies and strategies are guided by Islamic fatwa. Therefore, this study aimed to assess knowledge and attitudes toward DNR decisions among medical students Jeddah, KSA. Methodology: Cross-sectional study was conducted with a validated online questionnaire on 425 medical students in Jeddah, KSA. This study included medical students from all academic years in Jeddah, KSA, and excluded first-year college and medical students from Jeddah University and Fakeeh Medical College. Results: The questionnaire was completed by 425 participants; the majority of them were female (72.71%). Of the 425 participants, (82.8%) were familiar with the DNR term, which was significant with participants with higher academic levels (P= 0.000290). However, only (28.69%) were able to choose the correct definition. Only (11.6%) participants had previous experience with DNR.Most respondents did not know if there was a policy (59.5%) or fatwa (62.6%) regarding DNR. Conclusion: Our results clearly showed a significant lack of understanding of DNR among medical students in Jeddah, KSA. Therefore, we suggest that more ethical education regarding DNR and its policies should be conducted during medical education in the KSA.

Keywords: DNR, attitude, evaluation, knowledge, medical student

Medical Science, 2021, 25(114), 1984-1991

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