Palliative Care for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis Patients: Pulmonary Physicians' View

Although idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) has worse outcomes compared with most malignancies, patients with IPF receive poor access to optimal palliative care.

This study aimed to characterize the practice of pulmonologists regarding palliative care and end-of-life communication for patients with IPF and identify perceived difficulties and barriers thereto.

Self-administered questionnaires were sent by mail to representative pulmonologists from Shizuoka prefecture, Japan. Physician-reported practice, difficulties, timing of end-of-life communication, and barriers related to palliative care were investigated.

Among the 135 participants, 130 (96%) completed the questionnaire. Most of the participants reported that patients with IPF complained of dyspnea and cough. However, less morphine was prescribed for IPF than for lung cancer. The participants experienced greater difficulty in providing palliative care for IPF than for lung cancer. Moreover, actual end-of-life discussions in patients with IPF were conducted later than the physician-perceived ideal timing. Among the barriers identified, few established treatment and difficulty in predicting prognosis (odds ratio [OR] 2.0; P = 0.04), discrepancies in understanding and care goals among patients, family, and medical staff (OR 2.2; P = 0.03), and inadequate communication about goal of care (OR 2.3; P = 0.003) were significantly associated with the physician-perceived difficulties in providing palliative care for patients with IPF.

Pulmonologists experienced greater difficulty in providing palliative care to patients with IPF than to those with lung cancer. Clinical studies on the optimal palliative care for patients with IPF are urgently required.