Hearing the Bad News of a Cancer Diagnosis: the Australian Melanoma Patient's Perspective

Background: In the past, recommendations on how to break the bad news of a cancer diagnosis have been based on expert opinion. Recently, consensus-based guidelines for medical practitioners have been developed. The objective of this work is to investigate patient preferences for communication practices and to identify any disparities between these guidelines, patient preferences and patient recollections of hearing their diagnosis.

Patients And Methods: A consecutive sample of 131 newly diagnosed melanoma patients were surveyed approximately 4 months after initial diagnosis to document their preferences and recollections of their communication experiences.

Results: Of the 'breaking bad news' recommendations investigated, patients did not strongly endorse the doctor helping tell others of the diagnosis or telling the patient about cancer support services. Very few patients expressed a preference for having another health professional present. One communication feature, the patient feeling confident about getting the best treatment, was endorsed as 'very important' but does not feature in published guidelines. The most notable disparities between guidelines and the reported experiences of patients related to perceived delays in receiving the diagnosis, and having adequate opportunity to ask their clinician questions.

Conclusion: Current Australian recommendations on how to communicate a diagnosis of cancer were generally supported by the patients' expressed preferences, but several modifications are proposed.

Implications: Suggestions are offered to help overcome the disparities identified between recommendations and patients' preferences when a diagnosis of cancer is being communicated.