Table 2.

Breaking of bad news in a Nigerian neurosurgical service: patients’ and relations’ characteristics.

Characteristics	Patients	Relations	p-value
	N = 109 (%)	N = 114 (%)
Mean age in years (SD)	40.2 (14.2)	40.5 (13.6)	0.650
Age range in years	18–78	17–83
GENDER
Male	74 (67.9)	31 (27.2)
Female	35 (32.1)	83 (72.8)	<0.001
EDUCATION
Primary school or less	25 (23.0)	39 (34.2)
Secondary (high) school	36 (33.0)	26 (22.8)
Higher education	48 (44.0)	49 (43.0)	0.102
OCCUPATION
Trading/artisan	51 (46.8)	59 (51.8)
Low-mid level civil servants	35 (32.1)	26 (22.8)
Unemployed/students	15 (13.8)	24 (21.1)
Professionals	8 (7.3)	5 (4.4)	0.206
RELIGION
Christianity	78 (71.6)	82 (71.9)
Islam	31 (28.4)	32 (28.1)	0.95
RELIGIOUS FERVENCY
Not religious	1 (0.9)	3 (2.6)
Religious	55 (50.5)	58 (50.9)
Very religious	53 (48.6)	53 (46.5)	0.616

Shows the comparison of characteristics of patients and their relations who participated in the study. Apart from gender which showed that significantly most relations 72.3% were women compared with patients who were women (32.1%), there were no significant differences between the other attributes of patients and relations among the study participants.