The question of disclosing the diagnosis to terminally ill patients

Abstract

The question of disclosing the diagnosis to terminally ill patients was investigated by means of a semi-standardized interview of 56 subjects who had been 'told the truth' about their condition. The effects and interdependence of the factors of age, personality structure (EPI neuroticism scale), duration of knowledge, social contact, and religiousness, on the patient's ability to cope with the information were examined. The process of adjustment was assessed according to the stages proposed by Kübler-Ross (1969). Using the statistical model of path analysis, it was possible to evaluate these individual factors and present linearly their interrelationships. These results can offer medical staff the following guidelines: Three factors (a) advanced years, (b) good social contact, and (c) optimally unneurotic personality structure, provide the optimum conditions for a positive adjustment to the disclosure of a diagnosis of fatal illness. If, however, only one or two of these factors are involved, or if they are evident only to a slight degree, then conditions for telling the truth are less positive. On the other hand, in the case of (a) youth, (b) restricted social contact, and (c) a more markedly neurotic person, particular caution is recommended, since the danger of a negative reaction, and indeed even of suicide, must be reckoned with.