ABSTRACT
To assess family physicians ability to break bad news to the patient versus the ability of physicians from other specialties in the same skill. A cross sectional study was carried out in family practice centers and Suez canal university hospital that are affiliated to faculty of medicine Suez canal university to compare the performance of family physicians in breaking bad news skill versus the performance of physicians from other specialties in this skill using a Breaking Bad News Assessment Schedule [BAS] which was a method of evaluating how well a physician is breaking bad news to the patient. The family physician working in family practice centers and physicians from other specialty such as internal medicine, pediatric, oncology and obstetric and gynecology departments, they were chosen because they all share the same conditions that include breaking bad news such as chronic diseases, cancers, congenital anomalies, and infertility. The used tool BAS, was administered as self assessment, after explanation of the aim of the study to the studied groups. The study found that the two studied groups had similar sociodemographic and job characteristics; the only statistically significant difference was in attending postgraduate courses in breaking bad news which was higher in the family physician group. The majority of physicians in both groups expressed their need for more training courses in breaking ad news skill but the need was statistically higher in other specialty group. Statistically significant moderate positive correlations were detected between scores of performance and physician's qualifications and experience years. The independent predictors of the score of the performance of the skill of breaking bad news were being a family physician, with longer experience years, having broken bad news to patients more frequently, and having attended postgraduate courses in breaking bad news. The mean total skill score in the family physician group [78 +/- 10.8] was statistically significantly higher than that of the other specialties group [6 1 +/- 12.4] and the majority [91.7%] of the family physicians group were satisfied by their ability to break bad news, compared to [43.3%] of the other specialties physicians. The total performance of breaking bad news skill in the family physician group was higher than in the other specialties group, and they also feel more satisfied with performance, compared to the other specialties