Impact of Oncologists' Attitudes Toward End-of-Life Care on Patients' Access to Palliative Care.

Background: It is unclear how oncologists' attitudes toward end-of-life (EOL) care affect the delivery of care. The present study examined the association between oncologists' EOL care attitudes and (a) timely specialist palliative care referral, (b) provision of supportive care, and (c) EOL cancer treatment decisions.

Methods: We randomly surveyed 240 oncology specialists at our tertiary care cancer center to assess their attitudes toward EOL care using a score derived from the Jackson et al.