Number (%) of medical and law students in favour of informing or not informing about the diagnosis or prognosis of cancer if the patient asks to be told the truth
| (1) Diagnosis | (2) Prognosis | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medical students | Law students | Medical students | Law students | |||||||||
| Score | M (n=127) | M1 (n=64) | M2 (n=63) | L (n=168) | L1 (n=75) | L2 (n=93) | M (n=127) | M1 (n=64) | M2 (n=63) | L (n=168) | L1 (n=75) | L2 (n=93) |
| *Mann-Whitney. | ||||||||||||
| †Between the two groups of students from the same faculty. | ||||||||||||
| ‡Students from the younger group M2 less often agreed to tell the patient about the diagnosis. | ||||||||||||
| Group M1 : 64 medical students at the end of their fifth year in 1996. | ||||||||||||
| Group M2 : 63 medical students at the beginning of their fifth year in 1996. | ||||||||||||
| Group L1 : 75 first to fourth year law students from an “international law” lecture in 1996. | ||||||||||||
| Group L2 : 93 mostly first year law students from a “law and medicine” lecture in 1996. | ||||||||||||
| Bold = all medical students; all law students. | ||||||||||||
| 1. Certainly tell | 92 (72.4) | 50 (78.1) | 42 (66.7) | 129 (76.8) | 58 (77.3) | 71 (76.3) | 37 (29.1) | 20 (31.3) | 17 (27.0) | 91 (54.2) | 42 (56.0) | 49 (52.7) |
| 2. Probably tell | 35 (27.6) | 14 (21.9) | 21 (33.3) | 32 (19.0) | 13 (17.3) | 19 (20.4) | 57 (44.9) | 23 (35.9) | 34 (54.0) | 47 (28.0) | 22 (29.3) | 25 (26.9) |
| 3. As likely to tell or not | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 (2.9) | 3 (4.0) | 2 (2.2) | 16 (12.5) | 12 (18.8) | 4 (6.3) | 9 (5.4) | 3 (4.0) | 6 (6.5) |
| 4. Probably do not tell | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 (1.2) | 1 (1.3) | 1 (1.1) | 13 (10.2) | 8 (12.5) | 5 (7.9) | 17 (10.1) | 8 (10.7) | 9 (9.7) |
| 5. Certainly do not tell | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 (3.1) | 1 (1.6) | 3 (4.8) | 4 (2.4) | 0 | 4 (4.3) |
| p Value* (law versus med.) | 0.55 | 0.0003 | ||||||||||
| p Value* (same faculty†) | 0.15‡ | 0.91 | 0.63 | 0.44 | ||||||||