Investigating The Impact of Physicians' Attitudes Towards Death And Their Demographic Factors On Disclosure Of Bad News To Cancer Patients

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to investigate the attitudes of physicians towards death and cancer patients as well as to examine the relationship between physicians' demographic variables, their death anxiety, their attitudes and avoidance behavior towards informing patients about their diagnoses, and physicians' opinions about the necessity of education on how to approach patients with terminal illness.

Methods: The study involved 90 physicians who completed a questionnaire on sociodemographic information, the Death Anxiety Scale, and a 21-item questionnaire prepared by the authors to evaluate physicians' attitudes. 

Results: The results showed that 87.8% of the physicians believed that patients had the right to be informed of their diagnoses and disease condition completely. However, only 52.2% of the physicians accepted that the diagnosis should be announced. Moreover, when the patient was a physician themselves with cancer, 94.4% of the physicians agreed that they prefer to be informed about the diagnosis and survival. This ratio decreased to 56.7% when the patient was a physician's relative. Additionally, 94.4% of the physicians (n=287) agreed that education on how to approach death and cancer patients should be given during or after medical education. The responses to the questionnaire differed according to the variables of death anxiety, practice area, gender, and marital status.

Conclusion: According to the results, this paper shows the importance of the socio-demographic factors and the physicians attitude toward dealing with patients and giving bad news, and try to unify it by using a written training program in dealing with patients and giving bad news and reducing the effect of individual factors of physicians in dealing with Patients.