The Experience of Truth-Telling from Cancer Patients and Families’ Perspectives
Date Issued
2004
Date
2004
Author(s)
Kuo, Shu-Fen
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
The purpose of this study were to investigate the experience of truth-telling on cancer patients and families, and to explore an ideal way for executing truth-telling and its obstacles. Questionnaire survey was employed in this study. The subjects were 53 cancer inpatients and 66 family members conveniently recruited from a medical center and a cancer comprehensive center in Taipei. The data was collected by a structured questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS11.0. The findings were as follows: 1) There is a lower percentage of health providers to tell terminal information than to disclose cancer diagnosis. 2) 79.2％ of patients and 63.6％ of families were informed the cancer information by physicians, and 40.0％ of patients were informed by their family members directly. 73.6％ of patients and 56.1％ of families were informed after examination completed. 33.3％ of patients and 26.3% of families were informed after aggravation of the patient’s condition. There was a significant difference between telling terminal information and cancer diagnosis on the attitude of the truth teller. 3) According to the patient’s experience on being told the truth, the natural development of the disease, the weakness of doing aggressive therapy continuously, and the impact of the disease on life were seldom discussed. After truth- telling, the physicians rarely took care of the patient’s psychological response. The nurses seldom played any role during truth-telling, which is not in accordance to patient’s expectation. 4) The greatest factor influenced family’s willingness to tell the truth is patient’s emotional steadiness（89.1％）. The older the patient, the more unwillingness of his/her family to tell the truth (χ2＝4.69, p＜.05）.
In conclusion, it was a difficult situation in informing terminal information, and the family member’s willingness was the greatest factor. As to truth-telling, physicians and nurses were should help the families to overcome the dilemma of truth-telling, and decrease the discrepancy between the patient’s expectation and real situation. This will help increase patients’ autonomy and thus promote the quality of terminal medicinal caring.
Subjects
經驗
障礙因素
病情告知
癌末
experience
truth-telling
cancer
puzzle
SDGs
Type
other
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