It was found that about 9 out of 10 doctors and the general public thought that even when they became terminally ill due to a serious disease, as with cancer, they should inform the patient of the situation.
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Professor Oh Si-nae and Yoon Young-ho of the Department of Family Medicine at Seoul National University Hospital surveyed and announced the percentage of responding to 928 doctors and 1,005 general public in the country, saying’I want to know the prognosis of the terminal stage assuming that I am a patient’.
As a result of the survey, the percentage of doctors who answered’I want to know the end-stage prognosis’ was 99.0% of organ failures such as heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease, and liver cirrhosis. Neurological diseases were found to be 98.5%.
In addition, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) was 98.4%, cerebral infarction or Parkinson’s disease was 96.0%, and dementia was 89.6%.
In general, 92.0% of people with organ failure, 92.5% of inherited or neurological diseases, 91.5% of AIDS, 92.1% of cerebral infarction or Parkinson’s disease, and 86.9% of dementia answered’I want to know the terminal prognosis’.
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The research team explained that the general public had a lower rate of wanting to disclose a terminal prognosis compared to doctors. In particular, the rate that’if the family is a patient, you should inform’ was lower than when you were a patient.
As a matter to consider when notifying patients about their terminal prognosis, the’right of the patient to know their condition’ was the highest at 31.6% in the survey of doctors and the general public.
Again, the general public responded that they did not want to inform the terminal prognosis because of’the patient’s psychological burden such as anxiety and depression (35.8%)’ and’the patient’s loss of hope (21.2%)’.
Meanwhile, in Korea, in addition to cancer, hospice palliative care services for AIDS, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and liver cirrhosis have been started since 2017. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, in 2018, 7,638 people died from these diseases, of which only 29 used hospice palliative care services. The utilization rate is only 0.38%, which is very low compared to cancer, which is 22.9%.
Prof. Oh Si-nae said, “If you know your terminal prognosis in advance, you can help patients directly participate in future treatment-related decisions, such as life-sustaining plans and use of hospice palliative care.” “Finding the best way and timing for appropriate discussions with patients in the future. We need research for it.”
Meanwhile, the results of this study were published in the’Journal of Korean Medical Science’.
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