DOI: 10.1097/01.COT.0000472803.33723.ab

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Issn Print: 0276-2234

Publication Date: 2015/10/10


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3 Questions on... Breaking Bad News

Sarah DiGiulio

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Excerpt

What's the best way to break bad news to a patient? It depends on the patient, the patient's family, the news, the prognosis, where the conversation is taking place—and when—and numerous other factors, said Guilhem Bousquet, MD, PhD, a researcher in the Medical Oncology Unit at Hôpital Avicenne in Bobigny, France. “The oncologist needs to constantly adapt to each patient and each situation.”
Though various medical communities have developed recommendations to improve the communication skills of health care professionals in delivering bad news—oncologists and oncology care providers included—there is still a dearth of data on the experience of doing so, Bousquet and his colleagues explain in a metasynthesis report recently published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (2015;33:2437-2443).
The research systematically reviewed 40 qualitative studies that focused on the experiences and points of view of oncologists about breaking bad news to patients to determine common themes, as well as where research was lacking.
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