ArticleSupportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer2025
Prognostic beliefs in patients with cancer receiving outpatient palliative care.
Article in Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Domains of prognostic awareness, quality of life, and psychological distress in patients with advanced cancer.The oncologist · 2025Article
- Prognostic beliefs in palliative care: clarifying constructs, communicators, and consequences.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
purposePrognostic awareness refers to a patient's knowledge of their prognosis. Since this term implies that there is a knowable truth about survival, we propose utilizing the more neutral construct of "prognostic beliefs." We aimed to assess prognostic beliefs of patients with cancer receiving palliative care and their relationship to: i) recall of physician-communicated prognosis, ii) physical/psychological well-being, and iii) actual survival.
methodsParticipants were recruited in the outpatient palliative care clinic of a comprehensive cancer center in Toronto, Canada. Eligibility criteria were: ≥ 18 years, English-speaking, diagnosed with cancer, and receiving palliative care. Group comparisons of well-being were conducted using independent samples t-tests.
results188 participants completed physical and psychosocial well-being questionnaires and the Prognostic Beliefs Questionnaire. 167/188 participants (88.8%) recalled discussing treatability/curability and 81 (43.1%) recalled discussing expected survival with their physician. Among 147 participants who rated treatability/curability, 129 (87.8%) had prognostic beliefs concordant with their recall of physician communication, none had worse prognostic beliefs than their oncologist, and 18 (12.2%) had better prognostic beliefs. Of 77 participants who rated expected survival, 58 (75.3%) had concordant prognostic beliefs, 1 (1.3%) had worse beliefs, and 18 (23.4%) had better beliefs. Among 66 participants who died, 45 (68.2%) were realistic regarding survival time, 12 (18.2%) had more pessimistic beliefs, and 9 (13.6%) had more optimistic beliefs.
conclusionPatients with cancer receiving palliative care tend to have realistic prognostic beliefs about the treatability and curability of their disease and their expected survival, without adverse effects of this knowledge on their well-being.
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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.