Background: To explore clinician choice of whether to discuss prognosis with their frail older patients. Design: Qualitative interview study. Setting: Primary care clinicians were recruited from nursing homes, community-based clinics, and academic medical centers. Participants: Three geriatric nurse practitioners, nine geriatricians, five general internists, and three family medicine physicians with a mean age of 44 and a mean 12 years in practice. Seventeen clinicians had patient panels with 80% or more community-dwelling outpatients, 13 had patient panels with 50% or more patients aged 85 and older, and 16 had patient panels with 25% or more of patients in a minority group (Asian, African American, Hispanic). Measurements: Clinicians were asked to describe their practice of discussing long-term (
