This study aimed to determine the physicians and patients’ perceptions on death and disclosure of poor prognosis and determine the association to socio-demographic variables, illness severity and physicians’ training profile to the respondents’ perceptions. A total of 42 resident physicians and 240 patients responded to a Likert-type questionnaire regarding the general concept and concerns of death and dying, preferences of disclosure practices and perceived roles of physicians in end-of-life care. Descriptive statistics by means of frequency distribution was used to analyze the Likert-type items. Multiple logistic regression was utilized to determine the association of the outcome variables to the exposure variables. Physicians’ perceptions generally coincide with patients’ perceptions on their views that death is a natural part of life; that patients want to be given timely and detailed information about their prognosis; the more appropriate person to deliver bad news; the role doctors play in caring for terminally-ill patients and the need for physicians to be trained on how to conduct proper disclosure. However, physicians have the misperception that patients do not want to be told about the news of poor prognosis, when on the contrary, patients want to be informed. Another misperception of physicians is the notion that hope is destroyed when a patient is told about poor prognosis. This proved to be false for majority of the patient respondents. Association between physician perceptions and socio-demographic and training profiles is significant for age group and experience of difficulties in disclosure. Association between patient perceptions and socio-demographic profile and illness severity is significant for age group, Islam religion, Bisaya ethnic group and severe illness. Knowing the perceptions would lead to effective communication of death and dying which would allow patients to make more informed decisions, attain better palliative care and have an opportunity to achieve proper closure.

Keyword: Disclosure of death and poor prognosis Perceptions of physicians and patients