Breaking bad news while keeping hope alive in women with ovarian cancer

Ovarian cancer has one of the highest death-to-case ratios for any malignancy. When a woman presents with recurrent ovarian cancer, median survival is only 12-18 months and at this juncture, management options are targeted to enhance quality of life rather than cure the disease. Research shows that for such women, maintaining hope is an important factor influencing their quality of life. In a recent study by our group concerning information giving at the time of recurrent ovarian cancer, we found that keeping patients' hope alive was also an important goal for the 26 medical and gynecologic oncologists interviewed. In this chapter, we review the available medical literature on conceptual models which define what hope means to the patient and to the physician. More specifically: 1) we review conceptual models attempting to define the concept of hope and its key properties; 2) outline various measurement tools; 3) discuss why hope is important from the patient's and physician's point of view; and 4) explore how physicians juxtapose breaking bad news and keeping patient hope alive in the oncology medical encounter © 2012 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.