Clinical Psychology Commons^™

Patient Perceptions Of Receiving Bad News : Individual Coping Styles And Receiving The Diagnosis Of Cancer , Kyle B. Holsinger

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States (CDC, 2005). Physicians who disclose the cancer diagnosis to patients are faced with limited professional training and few consensus clinical guidelines for communicating this diagnosis to their patients (Buckman, 1992; Girgis, Sanson-Fisher, & Schofield, 1999). Use of guidelines for delivering bad news and tailoring the bad news message to individual patients is recommended, but it is unclear if this is followed in the medical community (Baile, Lenzi, Parker, Buckman, & Cohen, 2002). The current study was conducted through a mail-in survey, of 186 surveys delivered, 111 were returned, …