Challenges to the disclosure of bad news to cancer patients in the middle east: Saudi Arabia as an example

Abstract

Attitude towards disclosure of bad news to cancer patients in Saudi Arabia is still an unsettled issue. Recently, emerging data show clear contradiction between the public attitude, which is very conservative towards full disclosure, and the cancer patients' attitude. This chapter attempts to look into what governs the public attitude towards disclosure in Saudi Arabia as an example of what may affect attitudes in developing countries. It also brings some data from local surveys among physicians and patients as well as from public surveys with a comparative analysis of the Western literature in the past and at present to prove that attitude is dynamic and can be changed.