Participants
We recruited doctors and nurses through the management on the three
wards. We sought an equal distribution across age, gender and medical
specialization. Doctors and nurses gave their informed written consent
before participating. All patients and companions, who attended the
outpatient clinic, received information about the aims and procedure of
our study. Having given informed written consent to participate,
patients and companions filled out a short questionnaire giving their
gender, age, years of education, occupation and civil status. All
consented to participate except from two patients who did not want to
participate for private reasons. The first author timed all encounters.
The encounters lasted 22 minutes on average (ranging from 7 to 60
minutes): malign melanoma 25 minutes, urological cancer 18 minutes and
lung cancer 22 minutes.
Table 1 and 2 describe demographic characteristics for HPs, patients and
companions respectively. We did not interview patients and companions,
but they participated in the encounters observed.