Participants
We recruited doctors and nurses through the management on the three wards. We sought an equal distribution across age, gender and medical specialization. Doctors and nurses gave their informed written consent before participating. All patients and companions, who attended the outpatient clinic, received information about the aims and procedure of our study. Having given informed written consent to participate, patients and companions filled out a short questionnaire giving their gender, age, years of education, occupation and civil status. All consented to participate except from two patients who did not want to participate for private reasons. The first author timed all encounters. The encounters lasted 22 minutes on average (ranging from 7 to 60 minutes): malign melanoma 25 minutes, urological cancer 18 minutes and lung cancer 22 minutes.
Table 1 and 2 describe demographic characteristics for HPs, patients and companions respectively. We did not interview patients and companions, but they participated in the encounters observed.