title: Health professionals' attitude towards information disclosure to cancer patients in China.
abstract: A self-designed questionnaire was given to 634 health professionals in a large teaching hospital in Hubei Province in mainland China, to clarify the participants' attitude towards information disclosure to cancer patients. Statistic description was used to analyze the data. The item 'inappropriate information about cancer easily leads to medical disputes' scored highest at 3.86, while the scores of such items as 'advantages of fully informing patients outweigh disadvantages', 'if their family members demand nondisclosure, you will find it difficult to cooperate in good faith with patients', and 'telling white lies to patients disturbs you a lot' were less than 3. The health care staff placed a high value on both the desire and priority of patients to know the truth, though most of them did not think that patients had received enough information about their disease. In order to improve cancer patients' current state of knowledge, health professionals should learn more about informed consent, and special methods and guidelines compatible with Chinese culture are urgently required in China.
authors.affiliation: Tongji Hospital and Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Hubei Wuhan 430030, PRC. tyzeng@tjh.tjmu.edu.cn
authors.forename: Zeng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Tieying
authors.forename: Huang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Haishan
authors.forename: Zhao
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Meizhen
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pengqian
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002681:China; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D014342:Truth Disclosure