Communication with terminal cancer patients in palliative care: are there differences between nurses and physicians?

The aim of this study was to find whether there were interprofessional diff erences in specific elements of communication with terminal cancer patients and decisionmaking processes that concern such patients. Given that interd isciplinary team work is one of the basic values in palliative care, if the re are conflicting views between professions on such important issues it is most important to know about these and to understand them. A questionnaire utilized in an earlier survey of palliative care physicians and addressing their attitudes to and beliefs about specific elements of communication an d decision making was sent to a sample of palliative care nurses working in the same regions, i.e. the French-speaking parts of Switzerland, Belgium a nd France. After a second mailing (reminder), 135 of the 163 questionnaires (83%) were returned. There was general agreement between nurses and physic ians on questions dealing with perceptions of patients' knowledge of their diagnosis and stage of disease, patients' need for information, "do not res uscitate" orders and ethical principles in decision-making processes. Stati stically significant, but small, differences between professional groups we re only observed for a minority of the questions. Interprofessional differe nces in specific elements of communication with terminal cancer patients an d decisionmaking processes affecting these patients were not so marked that they could be called "conflicting interprofessional views."