• J Gen Intern Med · Dec 2023

    Meta Analysis

    The Disclosure of Bad News Over the Phone vs. in Person and its Association with Psychological Distress: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

    • Jonas Mueller, Katharina Beck, Nina Loretz, Christoph Becker, Sebastian Gross, René Blatter, Tabita Urben, Simon A Amacher, Rainer Schaefert, and Sabina Hunziker.
    • Department of Medical Communication and Psychosomatic Medicine, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
    • J Gen Intern Med. 2023 Dec 1; 38 (16): 358936033589-3603.

    BackgroundCommunicating bad news such as a new cancer diagnosis to patients may have a major impact on their well-being. We investigated differences in patients' psychological distress due to the disclosure of bad news by telephone compared to in person in a systematic review and meta-analysis.MethodsWe included all studies that investigated anxiety, depressive or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in adult patients in whom bad news by telephone compared to in person were disclosed. We systematically searched PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO and CINAHL from the inception of each database to October 18, 2022. We included randomized and non-randomized trials.ResultsWe screened 5944 studies and included 11 studies in the qualitative analysis and 9 in the meta-analyses, including four randomized controlled trials. Overall, the quality of studies was moderate to good. There was no difference regarding psychological distress when bad news was disclosed by telephone compared to in person with similar symptom levels of anxiety (3 studies, 285 participants; standardized mean difference [SMD] 0.10 [95% CI -0.15 to 0.35]), depression (3 studies, 284 participants; SMD 0.10 [95% CI -0.30 to 0.49]), and PTSD (2 studies, 171 participants; SMD -0.01 [95% CI -0.48 to 0.36]). Results were similar for satisfaction with care.DiscussionThis meta-analysis found no difference regarding psychological distress regardless if bad news were disclosed by telephone or in person, but there were overall only few and heterogeneous studies with a small number of eligible patients. The findings suggest that the modality of disclosure might play a secondary role and the way in which the bad news are communicated might be more important.© 2023. The Author(s).

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