Abstract
BACKGROUND: Early palliative/supportive care (PSC) consultation and advance care planning (ACP) improve outcomes for patients with incurable cancer. However, PSC is underutilized in the United States. OBJECTIVE: To examine philosophical differences among PSC, radiation oncology (RO), and medical oncology (MO) physicians in order to understand barriers to early PSC referral. DESIGN: An electronic survey collected views of a nationwide cohort of health-care professionals regarding ACP and end-of-life care. Setting/Participants/Measurements: A subgroup analysis compared the responses from all 51 PSC, 178 RO, and 81 MO physician participants (12% response rate), using Pearson χ(2) and Mann-Whitney U tests for categorical and ordinal data, respectively. RESULTS: More statistically significant differences were observed between RO-PSC (12 questions) and MO-PSC (12 questions) than RO-MO (4 questions). Both RO and MO were more likely than PSC physicians to believe doctors adequately care for emotional ( P < .001) and physical ( P < .001) needs of patients with an incurable illness. Both RO and MO were also less likely to believe that PSC physicians were helpful at addressing these needs ( P = .002 and <.001, respectively) or that patients' awareness of their life expectancy leads to better medical ( P = .007 and .002, respectively) and personal ( P = .001 for each) decisions. Palliative/supportive care physicians felt that doctors are generally less successful at explaining/clarifying advanced life-sustaining treatments than RO ( P < .001) or MO ( P = .004). MO favored later initiation of ACP than either RO ( P = .006) or PSC physicians ( P = .004). CONCLUSIONS: Differences in perception of appropriate end-of-life care exist between oncologists and PSC physicians, suggesting a need for improved education and communication between these groups.