ArticleJournal of pain and symptom management2020
Advanced Cancer Patients' Changes in Accurate Prognostic Understanding and Their Psychological Well-Being.
Article in Journal of pain and symptom management, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Psychosocial Well-Being and Care Among Advanced Cancer Patients: A Multi-Country Southeast Asia Study.Psycho-oncology · 2026Article
- Medical information and decision-making in palliative cancer: a qualitative study of patients' perceptions, needs, and preferences regarding physician communication.BMC palliative care · 2026Article
- Understanding Curability and Life Expectancy in Surgical Patients with Advanced Cancer: A Mixed Methods Analysis of Factors that Affect Views on Cancer Prognosis.Annals of surgical oncology · 2025Article
- Cancer Prognostic Awareness: Relations to Patient and Caregiver Quality of Life and Care Preferences.Journal of pain and symptom management · 2025Article
- Family members' experiences with intensive care unit diaries.BMC anesthesiology · 2025Article
- Accurate prognostic awareness is associated with increased emotional distress in Latino patients with advanced cancer.Palliative & supportive care · 2025Article
- Communicating about the end of life: The path of prognostic awareness.Palliative & supportive care · 2025Article
- Development and validation of the treatment expectation scale for patients with liver cancer.Archives of medical science : AMS · 2024Article
- How patients with advanced cancer conceptualize prognosis: A phenomenological qualitative inquiry.Palliative medicine · 2023Article
- Accuracy of curability expectations in patients with gastrointestinal cancers.Cancer medicine · 2023Article
- 'I Don't Like Uncertainty, I Like to Know': How and why uveal melanoma patients consent to life expectancy prognostication.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2022Article
- Effects of an Oncology Nurse-Led, Primary Palliative Care Intervention (CONNECT) on Illness Expectations Among Patients With Advanced Cancer.JCO oncology practice · 2022Article
- Epistemic Beliefs: Relationship to Future Expectancies and Quality of Life in Cancer Patients.Journal of pain and symptom management · 2022Article
- Advance Directives in Oncology and Haematology: A Long Way to Go-A Narrative Review.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Review
- Longitudinal Assessment of Prognostic Understanding in Patients with Advanced Lung Cancer and Its Association with Their Psychological Distress.The oncologist · 2021Article
- Factors associated with distinct prognostic-awareness-transition patterns over cancer patients' last 6 months of life.Cancer medicine · 2021Article
- Anticipatory Grief Among Family Caregivers of Terminally Ill Cancer Patients: A Multicenter Study Among Bangladeshi Population.Palliative medicine reportsArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
contextClinicians often worry that patients' recognition of the terminal nature of their illness may impair psychological well-being.
objectivesTo determine if such recognition was associated with decrements to psychological well-being that persisted over time.
methodsAbout 87 patients with advanced cancer, with an oncologist-expected life expectancy of less than six months, were assessed before and after an oncology visit to discuss cancer restaging scan results and again at follow-up (median time between assessments, approximately six weeks). Prognostic understanding (PU) was assessed at previsit and postvisit, and a change score was computed. Psychological well-being was assessed at pre, post, and follow-up, and two change scores were computed (post minus pre; follow-up minus post).
resultsChanges toward more accurate PU was associated with a corresponding initial decline in psychological well-being (r = -0.33; P < 0.01) but thereafter was associated with subsequent improvements (r = 0.40; P < 0.001). This pattern remained controlling for potential confounds. Patients showed different patterns of psychological well-being change (F = 3.07, P = 0.05; F = 6.54, P < 0.01): among patients with improved PU accuracy, well-being initially decreased but subsequently recovered; by contrast, among patients with stable PU accuracy, well-being remained relatively unchanged, and among patients with decrements in PU accuracy, well-being initially improved but subsequently declined.
conclusionImproved PU may be associated with initial decrements in psychological well-being, followed by patients rebounding to baseline levels. Concerns about lasting psychological harm may not need to be a deterrent to having prognostic discussions with patients.
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