Communication and information needs of care-givers of adult family members at diagnosis and during treatment of terminal cancer

A four-stage qualitative investigation of the communication and information needs of care-givers at the time of diagnosis of a family member with a terminal cancer and during disease progression found ‘paternalistic’ and ‘informative’ models dominated in practitioner-client relationships. Both patients and care-givers indicated that they preferred a model of interaction which allowed an equal weighting of medical facts and individual familial values with neither dominating the exchange.