Assessing the willingness of patients' companions to disclose bad news to cancer patients.

J Med Ethics Hist Med

Assistant Professor, Medical Ethics and History of Medicine Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Research Center for War-Affected People, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Department of Medical Ethics, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

Published: June 2022

AI Article Synopsis

  • Telling patients bad news, like a cancer diagnosis, is really important for doctors, but in Iran, sometimes families get in the way of that.
  • A study looked at what family members of both cancer patients and non-cancer patients think about sharing bad news with patients.
  • Most people believe patients should know their diagnosis, but families often want to be told first, showing that it's important to teach families about respecting the patient's right to know.

Article Abstract

Breaking bad news to patients is an essential aspect of the physician-patient relationship, but in Iran, this relationship is often disrupted by patients' families. This study investigates the views of patients' companions on breaking cancer news. In this descriptive-analytic cross-sectional study, we conducted research on 170 cancer patients' companions and 170 non-cancer patients' companions. We designed a questionnaire to investigate the subjects' opinions and used CVI, CVR, Cronbach's alpha and ICC for evaluation. In order to compare groups, we used Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, Chi-square tests and Spearman's correlation. Most participants believed that patients should be informed of their diagnosis. Cancer patients' companions were more willing to learn the bad news in case they were diagnosed with cancer and were less likely to choose "despair" as the reason for non-disclosure (71% vs. 44%).There was no difference between the two groups in willingness to break the cancer news to patients, choosing who should be informed first, and the reasons for non-disclosure. Most participants believed the family should be the first to know the diagnosis. In this study, most participants believed that patients should be informed of their diagnosis. However, they preferred to learn about the diagnosis before the patient, which confirms the importance of educating the families about autonomy.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9376205PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.18502/jmehm.v15i3.9549DOI Listing

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