Breaking Potentially Bad News in Lung Cancer Workup: Telephone Versus In-person Breaking of Final Diagnosis

Disclosure of bad news is challenging for patients, relatives and healthcare providers. Current protocols for breaking bad news assume a single, in-person meeting for breaking bad news, however cancer workup is not a single event but a consecutive process with several contacts between patient and physician. Furthermore, an increasing number of patients receive their cancer diagnosis by telephone. The investigators want to examine whether having the result of lung cancer workup by telephone results in worse psychosocial consequences than having the result in-person. Both groups receive information on possibility of cancer at every patient-physician contact.