Openness of Health Professionals about Death and Terminal Illness in a Nigerian Teaching Hospital

Bibliographic Data

ID13628131
AuthorsKemi Adamolekun (Falls Church, Virginia, corresponding author)
Year1998
Volume36
Issue1
Pages23-32
Publication date1998-02-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0030-2228 • E-ISSN: 1541-3764
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2190/5f95-l2f6-elr6-0466
PMID11655258
OpenAlexW1991275273
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited4

Most physicians in developed countries are reported to have a sense of responsibility to inform a patient about the facts of his or her life-threatening condition. This study reports doctors' and nurses' responsibility to their terminally ill patients in an African environment. Since, by local tradition, doctors are not supposed to convey bad news and the patients do not see themselves as dying of illness, the doctors are not enthusiastic about informing the patients that their disease is terminal. Though doctors and nurses are of the opinion that patients or relatives should be informed of patients' diagnoses, the majority of these professionals do not discuss the prognosis with terminally ill patients. The need to discuss the diagnosis and prognosis according to the desire of each patient was examined. This is more relevant to the practice of medicine in the developing countries with the likelihood that more terminally ill patients would use the hospitals in the face of HIV/AIDS epidemic

Disease · Family medicine · Health care · Health professionals · Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV · Openness to experience · Palliative care · Terminally ill · Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare · Medicine · Nursing · Palliative Care and End-of-Life Issues · Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub