ArticleMedical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making2016
Factors Affecting Physicians' Intentions to Communicate Personalized Prognostic Information to Cancer Patients at the End of Life: An Experimental Vignette Study.
Article in Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Improving communication of prognostic uncertainty in advanced illness: a realist review.BMJ open · 2026Pooled it
- Development and internal validation of an ICU mortality prediction model for patients with concurrent sepsis and heart failure: a retrospective cohort study based on eICU-CRD.Cardiovascular diabetology. Endocrinology reports · 2026Article
- Development and validation of a machine learning model for predicting early death in metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: a study based on the SEER database.Translational cancer research · 2026Article
- Surveys in clinical research: methodological aspects and practical guidance.Critical care science · 2026Review
- The potential of uncertainty tolerance measures to identify specific needs of first-year medical residents: an exploratory study.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- A laboratory-less nomogram predicting survival rates for hospice patients with advanced cancer.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Nomogram predicting overall and cancer specific prognosis for poorly differentiated lung adenocarcinoma after resection based on SEER cohort analysis.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Evaluating Physician Emotion Regulation in Serious Illness Conversations Using Multimodal Assessment.Journal of pain and symptom management · 2023Review
- Prevalence and Predictors of Physician-Patient Discordance in Prognostic Perceptions in Advanced Cancer.The oncologist · 2023Article
- Use of Machine Learning and Lay Care Coaches to Increase Advance Care Planning Conversations for Patients With Metastatic Cancer.JCO oncology practice · 2023Article
- Prospective Comparison of Medical Oncologists and a Machine Learning Model to Predict 3-Month Mortality in Patients With Metastatic Solid Tumors.JAMA network open · 2022Article
- Emotions in the room: common emotional reactions to discussions of poor prognosis and tools to address them.Expert review of anticancer therapy · 2019Review
- Advanced cancer patients' understanding of prognostic information: Applying insights from psychological research.Cancer medicine · 2019Review
- Prognostication in advanced cancer: update and directions for future research.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2019Review
- The complexity of physicians' understanding and management of prognostic uncertainty in neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
purposeTo explore the effects of personalized prognostic information on physicians' intentions to communicate prognosis to cancer patients at the end of life, and to identify factors that moderate these effects.
methodsA factorial experiment was conducted in which 93 family medicine physicians were presented with a hypothetical vignette depicting an end-stage gastric cancer patient seeking prognostic information. Physicians' intentions to communicate prognosis were assessed before and after provision of personalized prognostic information, while emotional distress of the patient and ambiguity (imprecision) of the prognostic estimate were varied between subjects. General linear models were used to test the effects of personalized prognostic information, patient distress, and ambiguity on prognostic communication intentions, and potential moderating effects of 1) perceived patient distress, 2) perceived credibility of prognostic models, 3) physician numeracy (objective and subjective), and 4) physician aversion to risk and ambiguity.
resultsProvision of personalized prognostic information increased prognostic communication intentions (P < 0.001, η(2) = 0.38), although experimentally manipulated patient distress and prognostic ambiguity had no effects. Greater change in communication intentions was positively associated with higher perceived credibility of prognostic models (P = 0.007, η(2) = 0.10), higher objective numeracy (P = 0.01, η(2) = 0.09), female sex (P = 0.01, η(2) = 0.08), and lower perceived patient distress (P = 0.02, η(2) = 0.07). Intentions to communicate available personalized prognostic information were positively associated with higher perceived credibility of prognostic models (P = 0.02, η(2) = 0.09), higher subjective numeracy (P = 0.02, η(2) = 0.08), and lower ambiguity aversion (P = 0.06, η(2) = 0.04).
conclusionsProvision of personalized prognostic information increases physicians' prognostic communication intentions to a hypothetical end-stage cancer patient, and situational and physician characteristics moderate this effect. More research is needed to confirm these findings and elucidate the determinants of prognostic communication at the end of life.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.