Austrian Veterinarians' Attitudes to Euthanasia in Equine Practice.
Authors: Springer Svenja, Jenner Florien, Tichy Alexander, Grimm Herwig
Journal: Animals : an open access journal from MDPI
Summary
# Editorial Summary: Austrian Veterinarians' Attitudes to Euthanasia in Equine Practice Austrian equine veterinarians were surveyed to explore how they approach euthanasia decisions across various clinical and non-clinical scenarios, recognising that these judgements involve complex medical, legal, financial, ethical and emotional considerations. The anonymous questionnaire study, completed by 64 practitioners (a 23.4% response rate), employed Mann-Whitney U testing to examine whether gender, years of experience, and proportion of equine work influenced responses to euthanasia statements and clinical case vignettes. Whilst veterinarians demonstrated consistent awareness of owners' emotional attachments and financial circumstances when making decisions, requests for convenience euthanasia—those lacking clear medical justification—were typically declined across the cohort, suggesting a shared professional ethical framework. Notably, despite some statistically significant differences emerging between subgroups (based on experience and workload variables), the overall attitudes remained largely homogeneous, indicating that Austrian equine practitioners operate from broadly aligned principles. For farriers, physiotherapists, nutritionists and coaches working alongside veterinarians, these findings affirm that euthanasia decisions are guided by multifactorial assessment rather than owner preference alone, and that professional consensus exists around rejecting non-medical euthanasia requests—though individual veterinarians' weighting of animal welfare versus owner circumstances may still vary in borderline cases.
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Practical Takeaways
- •Recognize that your euthanasia decisions involve complex ethical weighing of animal welfare, owner circumstances, and professional standards—not purely medical criteria
- •Be prepared to discuss emotional and financial factors with owners, but maintain clear boundaries against non-medical euthanasia requests
- •Document your decision-making rationale in euthanasia cases to reflect the multifactorial nature of these ethically challenging decisions
Key Findings
- •64 Austrian equine veterinarians (23.4% response rate) completed a questionnaire examining attitudes toward equine euthanasia
- •Veterinarians consider contextual and relational factors including owners' emotional bonds and financial background when making euthanasia decisions
- •Requests for convenience euthanasia are typically rejected despite awareness of owner circumstances
- •Attitudes toward euthanasia were largely shared among respondents despite some significant differences based on gender, work experience, and equine workload