Fear of future not current pain is the biggest reason patients ask for help with assisted suicide.

Fear of future pain is biggest reason that people ask for help with assisted suicide.

The Oregon Health and Science University Press release was issued on March 9 2009. Here is part of what it says:

"Our data suggest that patients who request physician-assisted death do so not because of physical symptoms or their current quality of life," Dr. Linda Ganzini, a psychiatry professor at the Oregon Health & Science University, said in a university news release. "They often make their requests based on an anticipation of future suffering."

The study was published in the March 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. To read more about the study, click here.

Oregon was the only state in the United States that had legalized physician assisted suicide until Washington State did this past November, 2009.