Talking to dying patients of their hopes and needs

Patients use many different coping mechanisms when they are facing a terminal diagnosis, but it should not be assumed that they want to talk to nurses about the terminal nature of their illness. Research shows that a proportion of patients may want to, so this article suggests that best practice with regard to communication in palliative care could be achieved by using a sensitive assessment of how each patient chooses to cope with his or her situation rather than a uniform approach to care.