The attitude towards disclosure of bad news to cancer patients in Saudi Arabia

Disclosing the diagnosis or prognosis to cancer patients in Saudi Arabia can be a serious challenge to the physician in his daily clinic practice. The public attitude towards full disclosure is still conservative, and in order to appropriately deal with such an attitude, physicians need to deeply understand its sociocultural background. This article attempts to look into what governs the public attitude towards disclosure in Saudi Arabia as an example of what may affect attitudes in developing countries. It also brings some data from local surveys among physicians and patients as well as from public surveys to describe the changing trend in attitude over the years with a comparative analysis of the Western literature.