This Article Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Mas, C. Articles by Mullet, E. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Mas, C. Articles by Mullet, E. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

French general practitioners vary in their attitudes toward treating terminally ill patients

¹ University of Rangueil
² Department of Psychology, University of Mirail
³ Albany Medical College
⁴ Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sorump{at}mail.amc.edu.

	Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze French general practitioners’ attitudes toward prescribing opiate painkillers for dying patients and compare them with their attitudes toward making frequent home visits. One hundred and fifteen general practitioners indicated the acceptability of prescribing opiates in 48 scenarios of terminal cancer patients with different levels of age, gender, stated pain, request for painkillers, and signs of depression; 103 of them also indicated the acceptability of making frequent home visits in the same 48 scenarios. The responses were analyzed using analysis of variance and cluster analysis. For prescribing opiates, four clusters of physicians were found: 13 prescribed primarily in response to stated pain; 43 to request for painkillers; 43 to the combination of pain, request, and depression; and 16 in virtually all cases. Using the same clusters to analyze visiting gave results that were very consistent with those for prescribing. We conclude that French general practitioners have differing and consistent styles in prescribing painkillers and making home visits to dying cancer patients.

First published on October 1, 2009
Palliative Medicine 2009, doi:10.1177/0269216309107012


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?