PORTLAND (AP) - About 17 percent of chronically ill Oregonians consider doctor-assisted suicide as a way to end their lives, much more than the number of patients who actually use the option, according to a new study by Oregon Health & Science University.

Only 2 percent of dying patients formally request physician-assisted suicide, and one in 1,000 patients died by lethal prescription, the study said. It is published in the current edition of the Journal of Clinical Ethics.

Researchers were surprised by the number of people who considered assisted suicide seriously enough to talk to their family about it, said Dr. Susan Tolle, director of OHSU's Center for Ethics in Health Care and one of the study's authors.

Dr. Linda Ganzini, a professor of psychiatry and medicine at OHSU, said some patients may dismiss the idea of assisted suicide after entering a hospice or starting treatment for pain or depression.

Those already in hospice care are more likely to persist, she said.

According to the study, 44 percent of dying patients were in favor of assisted suicide, 15 percent were neutral, and 41 percent opposed the issue.

Factors such as race, age and education also affected patients' opinions about assisted suicide.

"Patients more likely to personally consider (physician-assisted suicide) are younger, white, not very religious and battling cancer," said Tolle, a medicine professor at OHSU.

Those who ultimately chose assisted suicide tend to have a higher level of education than their peers, she said.

Researchers conducted phone interviews with 1,384 caregivers who lost an adult family member through natural causes between June 2000 and March 2002.

The study comes as a federal appeals court is refusing to reconsider its decision to uphold Oregon's assisted-suicide law, the only law of its kind in the nation.

The White House wanted the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to throw out its ruling backing the law, which allows doctors to help hasten the deaths of patients. But the court ruled last week against a rehearing.

A three-judge circuit panel ruled in May that U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft cannot hold Oregon doctors criminally liable for prescribing overdoses under the state's voter-approved Death With Dignity Act.