Attitudes of Doctors in a Teaching Hospital in South India towards End Of Life care in people with Terminal Cancer: A Cross Sectional study

BACKGROUND : End of life (EOL) care which involves specialized care to the person who is nearing or at the end of life is an emerging phenomenon in developing countries and studies done in this context are very few. METHOD : Consenting medical, surgical Oncology, radiation oncology and palliative medicine department of teaching hospital in South India completed anonymized semi-structured questionnaire which assessed the attitude of the doctors towards EOL care and challenges faced by them in delivering the same to people with terminal cancer. It also assessed about the personal experience and spiritual belief influencing the decision making. RESULTS : Of the 117 participants, 82% were male and 18% were female. Of the 12 departments involved, the largest number of participants were from orthopaedics department (22%), followed by general surgery(18%), and radiotherapy (17%). The attitudes of the physicians in scenarios involving patients with poor life expectancy and older people revealed the finding that disclosures were made much earlier. Younger physicians differed from the older physicians in discussing various options except DNR status (p