To Establish and Test the Local Education Model for Truth-Telling of Cancer in Taiwan: a Longitudinal Study

Truth-telling is a common and important clinical operation of doctors. However, it is seldom discussed in medical education. In recent years, doctor-patient relationship has been increasingly intense, the “litigation rate” of doctors in Taiwan has reached first place in the world. Many litigation cases are associated with the truth-telling of cancer. Over the past two years, Taiwan Psycho-Oncology Society (TPOS) introduced the SHARE Model in Japan for Communication Skill Training (CST) in the hope that doctors’ truth-telling ability for cancer can be improved. However, SHARE Model originates from the thoughts of cancer patients in Japan. Therefore, it has to be amended according to local empirical evidences to be more applicable to the unique medical culture in Taiwan. Therefore, the author’s motivation to conduct this study was triggered. The main purpose of this 3-year study is to establish and test the local education model for the truth-telling of cancer in Taiwan. The purpose of the Year 1 study is to integrate the verdicts (approximately 150 cases) concerning truth-telling of cancer in the past five years to understand the occurrence trend and the reasons why medical and nursing personnel are involved in the litigations, in order to provide such information as reference for the education of truth-telling. Content analysis is used to analyze relevant verdicts to achieve the research purpose. The purpose of the Year 2 study is to amend the SHARE Model in Japan to establish the local truth-telling model in Taiwan. The author intends to achieve the research purpose based on the researching findings in the Year 1 study, relevant empirical evidences accumulated in the past and comments from the meeting of experts. The purpose of the Year 3 study is to test the effectiveness of the local truth-telling model in Taiwan on improving medical students’ truth-telling ability. The author is going to use experimental design to achieve the research purpose. The study team will be composed of the experts in medicine, nursing, law, education and statistics, and the findings will have positive contributions to education on truth-telling and further improve the quality of care for cancer

Project ID:PF10207-0399
External Project ID:NSC102-2511-S182-004