Two thirds of participants were women. Median age was 57 years and median survival was 57 days from DT-interview. Table 1 Patient characteristics Patients (N = 20) From September 2005 to January 2006, 210 consecutive patients were admitted to the two palliative care units. Hereof 101 were excluded and 109 were eligible, but out of these

patients, 35 deteriorated. Of the 74 remaining patients, Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical 31 accepted the intervention but 6 patients deteriorated before initiation. A total of 25 patients completed DT. Seven of these patients are not part of the analyses, because they participated in DT in a different part of the study (not reported here), which commenced after the feasibility testing period. All in all, 18 patients were included in the analysis of feasibility. The staff experienced

positive feed back from patients after their participation and the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical general impression among staff engaged in enrollment of patients was that DT was feasible for use in the two palliative care units. The experience in the oncology ward was less successful. Out of 71 consecutive patients, 29 were considered potentially eligible and Vandetanib clinical informed about DT. In contrast to palliative care, where patients were often excluded because they were too ill, patients in the gynecologic oncology department Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical were frequently excluded because the staff doubted that the patients had realized that their disease was incurable. Furthermore,

Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical several eligible patients were not informed: the staff never ‘found the right time to ask them’. Of the 29 invited patients, 10 never responded and 17 refused. Two patients who refused explained that they felt that the intervention was developed for ‘more palliative’ settings. One patient said: “Am I this far out now that it is time Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical to write my life testimony!” Others pointed to bad timing, no need or no energy. Only two of 29 patients accepted and completed DT. These two patients were also included in the analysis of feasibility. Professionals’ views Professionals had both positive and negative reactions to the DTQP – see additional file 1: ‘Results from feasibility testing of Dignity Therapy *’. The main message in the positive sellectchem comments was that the professionals liked the questions and found them relevant and important. The negative comments were grouped into six concerns: AV-951 (1) concerns that the protocol prompted existential issues that were too confronting, (2) cognitively challenging issues, (3) culturally unacceptable self-praise, (4) potential overlap between questions, (5) inappropriate words/phrases because of cultural meaning, and (6) interference with the lives of others. (1) Too existentially confronting issues: nine professionals thought that five items were too existentially confronting. The idea that the manuscript will outlive the patient is alluded to in questions 3, 7, 10 and 11.