The barriers dentists face to communicate cancer diagnosis: self-assessment based on SPIKES protocol

• Beatriz Nascimento Figueiredo Lebre Martins ^[3] ; César Augusto Migliorati ^[1] ; Ana Carolina Prado Ribeiro ^[4] ; Manoela Domingues Martins ^[2] ; Thais Bianca Brandão ^[5] ; Marcio Ajudarte Lopes ^[6] ; Carolina Guimarães Bonfim Alves ^[7] ; Alan Roger Santos-Silva ^[6]
  1. [1] University of Florida

     University of Florida

     Estados Unidos

     
  2. [2] Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

     Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

     Brasil

     
  3. [3] DDS, MSc. University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Oral Diagnosis Department, Piracicaba Dental School, Piracicaba, Brazil
  4. [4] DDS, MSc, PhD. University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Oral Diagnosis Department, Piracicaba Dental School, Piracicaba, Brazil; São Paulo State Cancer Institute (ICESP-FMUSP), Dental Oncology Service, São Paulo, Brazil
  5. [5] DDS, MSc, PhD. São Paulo State Cancer Institute (ICESP-FMUSP), Dental Oncology Service, São Paulo, Brazil
  6. [6] DDS, MSc, PhD. University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Oral Diagnosis Department, Piracicaba Dental School, Piracicaba, Brazil
  7. [7] DDS, MSc. University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Oral Diagnosis Department, Piracicaba Dental School, Piracicaba, Brazil; São Paulo State Cancer Institute (ICESP-FMUSP), Dental Oncology Service, São Paulo, Brazil

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• Localización: Medicina oral, patología oral y cirugía bucal. Ed. inglesa, ISSN-e 1698-6946, Vol. 28, Nº. 2, 2023
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This study aimed to characterize the barriers faced by Brazilian dentists to deliver bad news (DBN) about oral and oropharyngeal cancer diagnoses to patients by using a questionnaire based on the guidelines of the SPIKES protocol.

    This was an observational cross-sectional study. The questionnaire contained 27 questions based on the SPIKES protocol, which were answered in the SurveyMonkey platform.

    A total of 186/249 dentists answered the questionnaire. The main specialties reported were 36.02% oral medicine, 21.5% oral pathology, and 9.13% oral and maxillofacial surgery. A total of 44.6% expressed concern about the patient’s emotional reactions, and 46.24% of respondents had never participated in any specific training to communicate bad news.

    The lack of training and low confidence in dealing with patients’ emotional reactions dentists were considered the greatest barriers to DBNs. Moreover, most dentists who participated in the survey believe that a protocol to guide the communication of bad news would be useful for clinical practice. For those protocols to be used by dentists, training is critical for these protocols to be incorporated by professionals.