No systematic meta-analysis is available on the prevalence of cancer patients’ accurate prognostic awareness and differences in accurate prognostic awareness by publication year, region, assessment method, and service received.

To examine the prevalence of advanced/terminal cancer patients’ accurate prognostic awareness and differences in accurate prognostic awareness by publication year, region, assessment method, and service received.

Systematic review and meta-analysis.

MEDLINE, Embase, The Cochrane Library, CINAHL, and PsycINFO were systematically searched on accurate prognostic awareness in adult patients with advanced/terminal cancer (1990–2014). Pooled prevalences were calculated for accurate prognostic awareness by a random-effects model. Differences in weighted estimates of accurate prognostic awareness were compared by meta-regression.

In total, 34 articles were retrieved for systematic review and meta-analysis. At best, only about half of advanced/terminal cancer patients accurately understood their prognosis (49.1%; 95% confidence interval: 42.7%–55.5%; range: 5.4%–85.7%). Accurate prognostic awareness was independent of service received and publication year, but highest in Australia, followed by East Asia, North America, and southern Europe and the United Kingdom (67.7%, 60.7%, 52.8%, and 36.0%, respectively; p = 0.019). Accurate prognostic awareness was higher by clinician assessment than by patient report (63.2% vs 44.5%, p < 0.001).

Less than half of advanced/terminal cancer patients accurately understood their prognosis, with significant variations by region and assessment method. Healthcare professionals should thoroughly assess advanced/terminal cancer patients’ preferences for prognostic information and engage them in prognostic discussion early in the cancer trajectory, thus facilitating their accurate prognostic awareness and the quality of end-of-life care decision-making.