Barriers to good end-of-life care: a physician survey

Surveyed about barriers to good end-of-life care were 804 Hawaii physicians in specialties most likely to care for dying patients. Responses were received by 367 (46%). The majority attended terminally ill patients within the past year and felt that the physician should be the first to tell a patient that he/she is dying. Yet 86% identified barriers to talking about end-of-life preferences and 94% identified barriers to providing good end-of-life care. Perceived as major barriers were family conflict about the best course of action, patient/family discomfort with or fear of death, and cultural/religious beliefs of the patient or family. Since relatively few respondents supported the concepts of physician-assisted suicide (32%) or physician-assisted death (18%), the alternative is for physicians to join with other concerned entities to help overcome the attitudinal, behavioral, educational, and economic barriers to providing appropriate, humane, and compassionate care for the dying.