Evaluation of Knowledge of Breaking Bad News among Doctors and Nurses in Tertiary Care Hospitals Across Pakistan

Objective: To establish the knowledge and skill of breaking bad news (BBN) among doctors and nurses in tertiary care hospitals of Pakistan.Study Design: Cross-sectional descriptive study.Place and Duration of Study: The study was carried out on doctors and nurses in tertiary care hospitals across Pakistan from 20th March 2021 to 21st May 2021.Materials and Methods: A total of 60 responders from different tertiary care hospitals completed a questionnaire-based survey on the knowledge and skill of breaking bad news. The questionnaire was designed with the help of the guidance of experts of the Shaheen palliative care project, and its reliability and validity were checked by SPSS.For data collection, convenience sampling was used and to present the distribution of responses, frequencies and percentages were used. The sample size was calculated from the previous study using the WHO sample size calculator (2.2a for population proportions). Data was entered in Excel and analyzed using SPSS version 16.Results: Of the total participants, almost all 59 (98.3%) had the experience of breaking bad news to patients, 32 (53.3%) knew SPIKES protocol, whereas only 10 (18.2%) followed SPIKES model in delivering bad news.Conclusion: Among Pakistani doctors and nurses, the knowledge and skill of delivering breaking bad news is not satisfactory. Although breaking bad news is a part of training at different levels, it should be a part of the curriculum at all doctors and nurses to improve their communication skills, especially in terminal care.