Physician's Death Anxiety and Patient Outcomes

Abstract

It was hypothesized that terminal patients of physicians with high death anxiety would survive longer during their final hospital stay than terminal patients of physicians with low death anxiety. This was based on the reasoning that physicians high in death anxiety would be less willing to accept their patients' terminality and therefore would be more likely to use heroic measures to keep them alive. Hospital physicians were asked to complete a death anxiety scale over the telephone. Unknown to them, hospital records were later examined to determine the number of patients treated by each physician, the number that died, the length of final hospital stay of dying patients and the length of stay in the hospital of non-dying patients. As predicted, patients of physicians with high death anxiety were in the hospital an average of five days longer before dying than patients treated by physicians of medium and low death anxiety.