Information disclosure and decision-making: the Middle East versus the Far East and the West.

Objectives: to assess physicians' and patients' views in Saudi Arabia (KSA) towards involving the patient versus the family in the process of diagnosis disclosure and decision-making, and to compare them with views from the USA and Japan.

Design: A self-completion questionnaire (used previously to study these issues in Japan and the USA) was translated to Arabic and validated.

Participants: Physicians (n = 321) from different specialties and ranks and patients (n = 264) in a hospital or attending outpatient clinics from 6 different regions in KSA.