Physicians' interactions with families of terminally ill patients.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This study assessed how the attitudes and anxieties of family practice residents about death affect the care they give the families of terminally ill patients. METHODS: Sixty family practice residents completed a death anxiety scale as well as scales regarding physicians' reported attitudes about and behavioral responses to their dying patients and their families. RESULTS: Anxieties about the death of patients correlate with attitudes reflecting discomfort about handling patients' death. However, physicians' anxiety did not lead to decreased amounts of empathic behaviors with families. Rather, attitudes about the physician's role, ability, and willingness to become personally involved with a family's grief were related to the amount a resident addressed the future with the family and engaged in follow-up behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: Residents' professionalism was more important than their personal anxieties about their work for determining their response to families. Family physicians have an important role in helping families of dying patients cope with their grief. More effort at education and support for this role during training would help physicians feel more comfortable with and succeed at this aspect of their professional functioning.