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Experience with Euthanasia is Associated with Fearlessness about Death in Veterinary Students
Author(s) -
Witte Tracy K.,
Correia Christopher J.,
Angarano Donna
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
suicide and life‐threatening behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.544
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1943-278X
pISSN - 0363-0234
DOI - 10.1111/sltb.12000
Subject(s) - habituation , medicine , population , veterinary medicine , psychology , psychotherapist , environmental health
Veterinarians have an increased risk for suicide compared with the general population, yet there is little consensus regarding why this might be. We hypothesized that veterinarians become relatively fearless about death due to their repeated exposure to euthanasia. Accordingly, we predicted that there would be a positive relationship between experience with euthanasia and fearlessness about death, due to emotional habituation to the process of euthanasia. In a sample of 130 veterinary students, results conformed to expectation and indicated that the relationship with fearlessness about death was specific to euthanasia and did not generalize to experience with surgery or necropsy.