Factors Affecting the Physician's Disclosure of Truth to Cancer Patients in Iran

Background: One of the essential issues in doctor-patient relationship is thematter of telling the truth of cancer diagnosis to patients. This is not only importantfrom an ethical standpoint, but also can have legal implications. Thus, truth-tellingand its associated factors are of great importance especially in cancer patients. Theaim of this study was to evaluate factors effective in doctors’ telling the truth totheir patients.Methods: The statistical population included specialists and subspecialistsworking in the field of cancer treatment in Tehran. Overall, ۱۶۱ questionnaires,designed for our study, were gathered and evaluated.Results: According to our study, ۸۷.۶% of the responders would tell the truth totheir patients, while ۱۲.۴% wouldn't do so. They believed that the best person to tellthe truth to the patient is the physician or the psychiatrist specialized in this field.Ninety-two percent of physicians felt the need for developing a guideline oneducating patients. There was a significant difference between oncologists andnon-oncologists in terms of tendency to tell the truth, with non-oncologistsshowing more tendency. Most of the doctors preferred to tell the truth to theirmiddle-aged (۵۱–۷۰ years) patients rather than to their younger or older patients.Conclusions: Only ۲۵.۵% of physicians in our study had the policy to tell thetruth to majority of their patients, and almost all of them felt the need for having aformal guideline regarding informing and educating cancer patients. Thishighlights the significance of cultural-religious context of our country and theimportance of having a practical guideline to educate our physicians.

کلیدواژه ها:

Truth-telling ، disclose ، cancer patients ، ethics