A Study on the Truth Telling of Yemeni Doctors to Terminally Ill Patients

Abstract Background: Dealing with terminal illness involves more than symptoms management and patient comfort, it involves changing roles within family units; difficulties with coping; added responsibilities for family members; major decisions concerning care of the patients; increased concern about financial matters and legal issues. Aim of Study: This work was conducted with the objective of exploring the attitude of Yemeni graduated doctors in regard to ethical issues in terminally ill patients. Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was applied. A total number of 130 doctors representing all graduated doctors from the Faculty of Medicine, Aden Uni-versity, Yemen participated in the study. The opinions of doctors were obtained by means of self-administrated ques-tionnaires that included different criteria regarding terminally ill patients that was filled by doctors. Results: The results show that the majority of doctors give different opinions in relation to different aspects in dealing with terminal ill patients and gave justifications for that. The main reason identified by doctors for not telling the truth to terminally ill patients was that the patient would not like to know the truth, and the main reason for not telling the truth to the patient family was to protect the family from emotional stress. Conclusions: The study concluded that truth telling to terminally ill patients was a common dilemma in that 'to tell' or 'not to tell' was the main question which was evaluated differently by doctors.