Attitudes and practices of physicians towards truth-telling to patients

Abstract

Ethical dilemmas routinely arise in the hospital and outpatient practice settings. This is especially true in Middle Eastern communities, where health care practitioners often must deal with an unceasing moral conflict which is characteristic of the region's conservative cultural and societal values. Descriptive cross-sectional study that assesses physicians’ attitudes and practices towards truth-telling to patients with serious illnesses utilizing a self-administered survey. The sample for this study consists of a random sample of 156 residents and specialist physicians in one of the public hospitals in Bahrain. One hundred and thirteen physicians out of 156 (response rate 72%) consented to participate. In total, 34.5% were females and 33.6% were Bahrainis. Around half of participants (49%) implemented an “always tell” policy, whereas 34.8% implemented an “often tell” policy, 5% and 3% reported a “rarely tell” or “never tell” policy respectively. One-third of the physicians weren’t aware of the hospital's disclosure policy. There was no association between the sociodemographic variables and the disclosure policies. The study elucidated the disparity between physician's practices and their attitude towards truth-telling without any significant association with their sociodemographic variables. The study uncovered physicians’ preference towards knowing their own diagnosis if they were patients themselves, despite some stating they would not disclose the diagnosis of their patients, and the startling finding of physician's not being aware of their own hospitals’ policies.