Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate primarily, the attitudes of physicians toward death and terminally ill patients and, secondly, the relationship between the sociodemographic variables of the physicians and these attitudes. Also, this study aimed to find out the relationship between the death anxiety of the physicians and their avoidance behavior of informing patients about their diagnoses. Lastly, the physicians were asked about the necessity of education on how to approach patients with terminal ilness. Methods: The study subjects were 304 physicians. A questionnaire about sociodemographic information, the Death Anxiety Scale and a 15 item questionnaire prepared by the authors to evaluate the attitudes of physicians were applied to the participants. Results: 89.1% of the physicians believed that patients had the right to be informed of their diagnoses, independent of what the diagnoses were. However, when the diagnosis was a terminal illness, only 78.3% of the physicians accepted that the diagnosis should be announced. In addition, when the terminal disease was cancer, 77.6% of the physicians agreed that the patient should be informed about the diagnosis if the patient was the physician him or herself. This ratio was 55.6% when the patient was a physician?s relative and 51% when the patient was an unrelated adult. 94.4 % of the physicians (n= 287) agreed that education on how to approach death and terminally ill patients should be given during or after the medical education. The responses to the questionnaire were found to differ according to variables of death anxiety, practice area, gender and having children or not. Conclusion: This study explored the difficulties of the physicians when approaching death and the terminally ill, which is a neglected but important area in medical practice. This study examined and stated out these difficulties for further discussion.
Key words: Death, anxiety, physician, cancer
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