|
|||||
|
|
||||||
Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vol 25, No 6 (February 20), 2007: pp. 715-723 © 2007 American Society of Clinical Oncology. DOI: 10.1200/JCO.2006.06.7827 Randomized Controlled Trial of a Prompt List to Help Advanced Cancer Patients and Their Caregivers to Ask Questions About Prognosis and End-of-Life Care
From the Medical Psychology Research Unit, Department of Medicine and School of Psychology, and the School of Public Health, University of Sydney; Sacred Heart, Concord, Royal Prince Alfred, Liverpool, Calvary, Westmead, and Nepean Hospital Palliative Care Services, Sydney, New South Wales; and Southern Adelaide Palliative Services, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia Address reprint requests to Josephine Clayton, FRACP, PhD, Medical Psychology Research Unit, Blackburn Building D06, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia; e-mail: jclayton{at}med.usyd.edu.au
PURPOSE: To determine whether provision of a question prompt list (QPL) influences advanced cancer patients/caregivers questions and discussion of topics relevant to end-of-life care during consultations with a palliative care (PC) physician. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This randomized controlled trial included patients randomly assigned to standard consultation or provision of QPL before consultation, with endorsement of the QPL by the physician during the consultation. Consecutive eligible patients with advanced cancer referred to 15 PC physicians from nine Australian PC services were invited to participate. Consultations were audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed by blinded coders; patients completed questionnaires before, within 24 hours, and 3 weeks after the consultation.
RESULTS: A total of 174 patients participated (92 QPL, 82 control). Compared with controls, QPL patients and caregivers asked twice as many questions (for patients, ratio, 2.3; 95% CI, 1.7 to 3.2; P < .0001), and patients discussed 23% more issues covered by the QPL (95% CI, 11% to 37%; P < .0001). QPL patients asked more prognostic questions (ratio, 2.3; 95% CI, 1.3 to 4.0; P = .004) and discussed more prognostic (ratio, 1.43; 95% CI, 1.1 to 1.8, P = .003) and end-of-life issues (30% v 10%; P = .001). Fewer QPL patients had unmet information needs about the future ( CONCLUSION: Providing a QPL and physician endorsement of its use assists terminally ill cancer patients and their caregivers to ask questions and promotes discussion about prognosis and end-of-life issues, without creating patient anxiety or impairing satisfaction.
Patients and families have identified good communication as a critical aspect of medical care at the end of life.1,2 By enabling patients to ask questions that concern them, communication may be improved.2,3 Formulating questions about sensitive topics, such as prognosis and end-of-life issues, without prompting is difficult for some patients.4,5 A question prompt list (QPL) is a structured list of questions that serves as a prompt for patients to consider questions to ask their physician. QPLs have been shown to enhance patient participation during initial oncology consultations.6-9 We developed and piloted a QPL for advanced cancer patients and their caregivers who were referred for palliative care (PC).10 A randomized controlled trial was designed to evaluate the effect of providing the QPL to patients before PC consultations.
Setting Specialist PC services are well established in Australia,11 comprising teams of medical, nursing, and allied health professionals. PC services provide consultations in tertiary referral and district hospitals, inpatient PC units, and in homes, hostels, and nursing homes. Approximately 90% of referred patients have advanced cancer,12 and many are still receiving disease modifying treatment (eg, chemotherapy) with palliative intent.12
Participants and Protocol
QPL The QPL is a 16-page A5 booklet (Appendix, online only) containing 112 questions grouped into nine topics encompassing issues that may be discussed with a physician or another health professional.
Coding of Audiotaped Consultations Patient/caregiver questions, concerns, and items discussed, were tallied and categorized according to categories covered by the QPL. A question was a direct request for information. A concern was a patient or caregiver statement inviting a response from the physician. Items discussed (85 issues covered by questions in the QPL, whether or not prompted by a patient/caregiver question/concern), plus patient and caregiver questions/concerns were coded and tallied for each of the nine topics (Table 1) and in total.
Two coders were trained and blinded to group allocation. One coder coded all transcripts and recoded a random 10% to determine intrarater reliability. The second coder coded a random 10% of transcripts to determine inter-rater reliability.
Patient Questionnaires
Outcome Measures
Sample Size Calculations
Random Assignment
Statistical Analyses For all continuous and count variables, means are presented that are adjusted for the physician effect. Important baseline variables that were not evenly matched between groups (difference of 5% or more), including educational level (tertiary v nontertiary education), occupation (professional v nonprofessional), caregiver presence and timing of consultation with the PC physician (first/second/third consultation), were added as covariates to the negative binomial model to assess for confounding of the effect of the QPL on the primary outcome measure, but no confounding effect was found. Among QPL patients, the effect of strength of physician endorsement of the QPL on total patient questions was assessed using the negative binomial model (Proc Genmod, SAS).
Inter-rater and intrarater reliability of the consultation coding system was analyzed using intraclass correlation coefficient for count data (logarithmic transformation was performed first if heavily skewed) and
Participant Flow, Assignment, and Follow-Up From October 2002 to August 2004, 196 eligible patients were identified and invited to participate in the study and 174 participated (Fig 2). Data for 170 (90 in QPL group, 80 controls) were available for the primary analysis. The 24-hour and 3-week follow-up questionnaires were completed by 151 (87%) and 107 (62%) patients, respectively. The final questionnaire was completed by 13 of 15 physicians. Table 2 shows that patient baseline characteristics were similar in both groups. All participants had advanced cancer.
Reliability of Coding System The mean intrarater and inter-rater reliability of consultation audiotape coding for total patient/caregiver questions, concerns, and items discussed was 0.93 (range, 0.84 to 0.99) and 0.89 (range, 0.80 to 0.98), respectively. The corresponding reliability for physician endorsement of the QPL was 1.0 and 0.81, respectively.
Patient/Caregiver Questions and Concerns, Topics Discussed, and Consultation Length Caregivers present in the QPL group asked 2.11 (95% CI, 1.40 to 3.18) times more questions than controls (P = .0005), specifically about three of nine topics, including prognosis and caregiver issues (Table 2). There was no difference between groups in the overall number of concerns raised by caregivers. However, caregivers in the QPL group expressed significantly more concerns about lifestyle and quality of life (t107 = 1.98; P = .05), and end-of-life issues (Fishers exact test, P = .04). The total number of issues raised by caregivers, expressed as either a question or a concern, was significantly increased from an adjusted mean of 6.6 in controls to 9.9 in the QPL group (ratio, 1.49; 95% CI, 1.11 to 2.00; t107 = 2.71; P = .008). Overall 23% (95% CI, 11% to 37%) more items were discussed during consultations with QPL patients than controls (P < .0001). Seven of nine topics were discussed significantly more often in the QPL group (Table 3).
The adjusted mean consultation length increased from 30.5 minutes in controls to 37.8 minutes in the QPL group (ratio, 1.24; 95% CI, 1.09 to 1.41; t154 = 3.23; P = .002).
Achievement of Information Needs Within 24 Hours of Consultation
Achievement of Information Needs at 3-Week Follow-Up
Patient Anxiety and Patient/Clinician Satisfaction
Effect of Physician Endorsement of QPL
Participants Views of the QPL
Provision of the QPL increased patient and caregiver questions and stimulated discussion during the consultation, including about prognosis and end-of-life issues. Clinicians commonly underestimate patients desire for information about these topics,17 and miss hints or cues for information.5,18 Previous attempts to promote discussion of end-of-life issues have met with limited success.19,20 The QPL promoted caregiver questions and discussion about caregiver issues. One fourth of caregivers in the QPL group asked at least one question but none in the control group asked any questions about caregiver issues. The importance of and distinct information needs of caregivers of terminally ill cancer patients21,22 are often unmet.23,24 "What to expect in the future" was the greatest unmet patient information need, and this was reduced by the QPL. Overall, the QPL did not adversely affect patient anxiety or satisfaction or clinician satisfaction. The QPL was welcomed and deemed useful by almost all patients and their caregivers. The QPL consultations were longer by a mean of 7 minutes. It is reassuring that physician participants reported they were not concerned by the longer consultations, because important issues were addressed in response to the QPL. It is also possible that subsequent consultations may be shorter because more issues have already been discussed. A shorter version of the QPL may have shortened the consultation, as found in an oncology QPL study.8 Patient question asking in the QPL group increased with the degree of physician endorsement of the QPL. Without physician endorsement, the QPL had limited impact on patient questionsa finding consistent with effects of a QPL for oncology consultations.10 It is likely that the physicians own communication skills are influential in addressing any issues raised by the QPL.25 Provision of written examples of questions (QPL) to patients in combination with physician encouragement of question asking may be expected intuitively to have an additive effect on question asking compared with physician encouragement of question asking alone. Certainly qualitative feedback from our current and pilot10 studies suggests that patients need assistance in articulating questions in addition to having permission to ask questions from the physician. It is not known whether physician endorsement of question asking alone may have had similar effects to provision of the QPL plus physician endorsement. The QPL did not affect achievement of patient information need at the 3-week follow-up. Possibly, the QPL had only a short-term benefit. However, during the 3-week follow-up period, many patients repeatedly reviewed the QPL but were not seen again by the PC physician. Perhaps the QPL stimulates patients desire for information that is not adequately addressed unless there is ongoing review by the physician and endorsement of the QPL. Provision of a QPL to patients seeing an oncologist has been found to promote patient questions about prognosis in four previous studies,6-9 but these QPLs did not include questions about end-of-life issues.6-9 The QPL used here was longer, covered a wider range of issues, and was developed using a much more extensive consultation and feedback process from patients, caregivers, and health care professionals.10 Previous QPL studies have not evaluated effects on caregiver participation. The number of questions asked by the control group (adjusted mean, 2.3) in the current patient population was considerably smaller than in the control group in studies with patients seeing an oncologist for the first time (mean/median, 5.5 to 9).6-9 Perhaps at the time of referral to PC, patients feel overwhelmed and are therefore somewhat reticent to ask questions. Our results suggest that with provision and endorsement of the QPL, such patients ask more questions, which then generates discussion without adversely affecting psychological outcomes. The reason QPLs have been shown consistently to increase patient questions about prognosis is unclear. Perhaps the QPL empowers patients and their caregivers to ask questions about sensitive areas, such as prognosis. In addition, patients may value assistance in articulating questions about the future. Furthermore, physicians may not commonly raise the topic of prognosis, at least during their initial consultation. This was an unblinded study, given that previous research8 suggested that endorsement of the QPL by the physician increased the benefits of the QPL. Only one early consultation with the PC physician was audiotaped and evaluated after provision of the QPL. The impact of the use of the QPL over time needs to be examined. Only English-speaking patients were sampled, and although this was a multicenter study, the sample included only patients with advanced cancer in urban settings who were well enough to attend outpatient clinics. Therefore, the results may not be generalizable to other cultural groups, patients with other advanced progressive illnesses, those not well enough to attend an outpatient clinic, patients being reviewed by physicians other than those practicing in specialist PC, and patients being reviewed by nonphysician members of the PC team. This QPL is a useful tool for promoting patient and caregiver participation and stimulating discussion during palliative medicine consultations, provided the physician endorses and refers to it during the consultation. It is plausible that provision of this QPL may have broad application for facilitating patient/caregiver and physician communication about issues pertinent to palliative care. Modification of the QPL for specific settings, such as for particular cultural groups or for parents of dying children, would require consultation with stakeholders and piloting to ensure the content is culturally sensitive and addresses patient and/or caregiver information needs. For busy oncologists, an abbreviated version of this QPL may be useful for facilitating end-of-life discussions with advanced-cancer patients/caregivers without adding to consultation time. Research would be needed to ascertain the appropriate number and content of questions to include, and to evaluate its use in clinical practice.
The authors indicated no potential conflicts of interest.
Conception and design: Josephine M. Clayton, Phyllis N. Butow, Martin H.N. Tattersall Administrative support: Josephine M. Clayton, Martin H.N. Tattersall Provision of study materials or patients: Josephine M. Clayton, Ghauri Aggarwal, Katherine J. Clark, David C. Currow, Louise M. Elliott, Judith Lacey, Philip G. Lee, Michael A. Noel Collection and assembly of data: Josephine M. Clayton, Rhonda J. Devine Data analysis and interpretation: Josephine M. Clayton, Phyllis N. Butow, Martin H.N. Tattersall, Rhonda J. Devine, Judy M. Simpson Manuscript writing: Josephine M. Clayton Final approval of manuscript: Josephine M. Clayton, Phyllis N. Butow, Martin H.N. Tattersall, Rhonda J. Devine, Judy M. Simpson, Ghauri Aggarwal, Katherine J. Clark, David C. Currow, Louise M. Elliott, Judith Lacey, Philip G. Lee, Michael A. Noel Other: Josephine M. Clayton, Phyllis N. Butow, Martin H.N. Tattersall, Judy M. Simpson, Ghauri Aggarwal, Katherine J. Clark, David C. Currow, Louise M. Elliott, Judith Lacey, Philip G. Lee, Michael A. Noel
Sample Questions From the QPL Booklet, Asking Questions Can Help: An Aid for People Seeing the Palliative Care Team A print-ready version of the full QPL booklet can be downloaded from http://www.psych.usyd.edu.au/mpru/communication_tools.html. The QPL booklet was available only online once this study was completed. The QPL booklet contains 112 questions (Clayton J, Butow P, Tattersall M, et al: J Clin Oncol 22:4401-4409, 2004) grouped into nine topics: about the palliative care service and team, physical symptoms, treatment, lifestyle and quality of life, my illness and what to expect in the future, support, if you are concerned about your professional care, for caregivers, and end-of-life issues. Some sample questions for caregivers and end-of-life issues are shown below. For caregivers (page 13 of the booklet). If you have a carer, the following questions may be useful for them. Some of the questions listed here may not be relevant to your stage of illness.
End of life issues (pages 14 to 15 of the booklet). The following questions may not be relevant to you or your stage of illness. Please do not feel you have to read this section if you dont want to, but there may come a time in the future when you want to ask some of these questions. Questions that I may like to ask:
We are grateful to all the patient and caregiver participants for giving their time and energy to this study, and to the staff of the involved PC services who assisted with patient identification. We thank the palliative care physicians who participated including Drs Richard Chye, Neil Cooney, Jan Maree Davis, Paul Glare, Sally Greenaway, Helen Herz, Sara Rendo, and Meg Sands. We also thank the research nurses, Debbie Malcolm, Jenny Bunn, Christine Lillie, and Belinda Fazekis, who assisted with patient recruitment and data collection, Judy Hood who transcribed the audiotapes, and Heather Shepherd who assisted with piloting the audiotape coding system.
Supported by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Medical Postgraduate Scholarship and a Career Development and Support Fellowship from the Cancer Institute, New South Wales, Australia (J.M.C.). Presented in part at the 8th Australian Palliative Care Conference, August 30-September 2, 2005, Sydney, Australia; and the Clinical Oncological Society of Australia 32nd Annual Scientific Meeting, November 16-18, 2005, Brisbane, Australia. Authors disclosures of potential conflicts of interest and author contributions are found at the end of this article.
1. Steinhauser KE, Clipp EC, McNeilly M, et al: In search of a good death: Observations of patients, families, and providers. Ann Intern Med 132:825-832, 2000 2. Wenrich MD, Curtis JR, Shannon SE, et al: Communicating with dying patients within the spectrum of medical care from terminal diagnosis to death. Arch Intern Med 161:868-874, 2001 3. Street RL: Information-giving in medical consultations: The influence of patients communicative styles and personal characteristics. Soc Sci Med 32:541-548, 1991[CrossRef][Medline] 4. Arora NK: Interacting with cancer patients: The significance of physicians communication behaviour. Soc Sci Med 57:791-806, 2003[CrossRef][Medline] 5. Heaven CM, Maguire P: Disclosure of concerns by hospice patients and their identification by nurses. Palliat Med 11:283-290, 1997 6. Butow PN, Dunn SM, Tattersall MH, et al: Patient participation in the cancer consultation: Evaluation of a question prompt sheet. Ann Oncol 5:199-204, 1994 7. Brown R, Butow PN, Boyer MJ, et al: Promoting patient participation in the cancer consultation: Evaluation of a prompt sheet and coaching in question-asking. Br J Cancer 80:242-248, 1999[CrossRef][Medline] 8. Brown RF, Butow PN, Dunn S: M, et al: Promoting patient participation and shortening cancer consultations: A randomised trial. Br J Cancer 85:273-279, 2001[CrossRef][Medline] 9. Butow P, Devine R, Boyer M, et al: Cancer consultation preparation package: Changing patients but not physicians is not enough. J Clin Oncol 22:4401-4409, 2004 10. Clayton J, Butow P, Tattersall M, et al: Asking questions can help: Development and preliminary evaluation of a question prompt list for palliative care patients. Br J Cancer 89:2069-2077, 2003[CrossRef][Medline] 11. Maddocks I: Palliative care in the 21st century. Med J Aust 179:S4-S5, 2003 (suppl 6)[Medline] 12. Currow D: Australia: State of palliative service provision. J Pain Symptom Manage 24:170-172, 2002[CrossRef][Medline] 13. Cassileth BR, Zupkis RV, Sutton-Smith K, et al: Information and participation preferences among cancer patients. Ann Intern Med 92:832-836, 1980[CrossRef][Medline] 14. Spielberger CD: Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (form Y). Palo Alto, CA, Consulting Psychologist Press, 1983 15. Roter D: Patient participation in the patient-provider interaction: The effects of patient question asking on the quality of interaction satisfaction and compliance. Health Educ Monogr 5:281-315, 1977[Medline] 16. Korsch BM, Gozzi EK, Francis V: Gaps in doctor-patient communication: Doctor patient interaction and patient satisfaction. Pediatrics 42:855-870, 1968 17. Jefford M, Tattersall MH: Informing and involving cancer patients in their own care. Lancet Oncol 3:629-637, 2002[CrossRef][Medline] 18. Butow PN, Brown RF, Cogar S, et al: Oncologists reactions to cancer patients verbal cues. Psychooncology 11:47-58, 2002[CrossRef][Medline] 19. The SUPPORT Principal Investigators: A controlled trial to improve care for the seriously ill hospitalised patients: The Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatment (SUPPORT). JAMA 274:1591-1598, 1995 20. Hanson LC, Tulsky JA, Marion D: Can clinical interventions change care at the end of life? Ann Intern Med 126:381-388, 1997 21. Clayton JM, Butow PN, Tattersall MHN: The needs of terminally ill cancer patients versus those of their caregivers for information regarding prognosis and end-of-life issues. Cancer 103:1957-1964, 2005[CrossRef][Medline] 22. Kirk P, Kirk I, Kristjanson LJ: What do patients receiving palliative care for cancer and their families want to be told? A Canadian and Australian qualitative study. BMJ 328:1343-1347, 2004 23. Jones RVH, Hansford J, Fiske J: Death from cancer at home: The carers perspective. BMJ 306:249-250, 1993 24. Merrouche Y, Freyer G, Saltel P, et al: Quality of final care for terminal cancer patients in a comprehensive cancer centre from the point of view of patients families. Support Care Cancer 4:163-168, 1996[CrossRef][Medline] 25. Maguire P, Pitceathly C: Key communication skills and how to acquire them. BMJ 325:697-700, 2002 Submitted March 28, 2006; accepted September 18, 2006.
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
Copyright © 2007 by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Online ISSN: 1527-7755. Print ISSN: 0732-183X
|