Prognostic Understanding in ESC (ProgESC Study)

Advanced Cancer Clinical Trial

Official title:

Prognostic Understanding in Patients Receiving Enhanced Supportive Care (ProgESC Study)

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Not yet recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT06067087
• Other study ID #: EDGE 158645
• Secondary ID: IRAS 328196
• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Start date: November 15, 2023
• Est. completion date: October 31, 2024

Study information

• Verified date: September 2023
• Source: University College, London
• Contact: Christoph Becker, MD
• Phone: +44 20 76799057
• Email: christoph.becker[@]ucl.ac.uk
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Observational

Clinical Trial Summary

This study aims to assess how aware patients with advanced cancer are about their prognosis when they are referred to an Enhanced Supportive Care (ESC) service. Further, the study aim to assess the relationship between patients prognostic understanding and their mental health, quality of life, trust in medical professionals as well as their perception of the care they receive. The study will involve adult patients with advanced cancer who are referred to the ESC service at London University College Hospital. Patients who agree to participate will provide consent and answer a questionnaire. The questionnaire will cover their prognostic awareness, psychological symptoms, and quality of life. It takes about 20 minutes to complete and can be done online via RedCap

Description:

Background: Prognostic awareness among patients with life-limiting diseases has been shown to be associated with less depression, better quality of care and earlier referral to palliative care. Moreover, accurate understanding of their illness may support patients to make informed decisions about their future in alignment with their preferences, values or needs. Supportive care in cancer is the prevention and management of the adverse effects of cancer and its treatment. This includes management of physical and psychological symptoms and side effects. Enhanced Supportive Care (ESC) is a relatively new initiative implementing early supportive care in patients with advanced cancer. Although studies have shown that a large proportion of patients with advanced cancer remain unaware that their disease is not curable, research regarding prognostic awareness in patients referred to Enhanced Supportive Care (ESC) services is still scarce. A deeper knowledge of the factors and patient characteristics associated with prognostic awareness is an important first step to develop interventions to improve prognostic communication and thereby to facilitate delivery of high-quality ESC. General aim: The ESC team at University College London Hospital is embedded within the oncology outpatient service, providing specialist symptom control and Advanced Care Planning to patients with advanced cancer. The primary aim of this study is to better understand the prognostic awareness of patients referred to the ESC service. A secondary aim is to evaluate the relationship between patients' prognostic awareness and levels of psychological distress, quality of life, trust in medical professionals and perceived quality of care. Patient population: Consecutive adult patients with advanced cancer referred to the ESC service will be eligible to participate. Patients unable to complete questionnaires due to cognitive impairment such as dementia will be excluded. Patients who have already been referred to community palliative care services will also be excluded. Methods: This will be a cross-sectional prospective study. Potentially eligible patients will be identified by members of the ESC team and will be informed about the study. Interested patients will then discuss the study with the research team and will be invited to participate. After informed consent has been obtained, participants will complete a questionnaire which will cover their level of prognostic awareness, psychological symptoms, and quality of life). The questionnaire will take approximately 20 minutes to complete. The questionnaire can be completed online via RedCap. Endpoints: The primary endpoint of this study is the level of patients' prognostic awareness, which will be assessed by the Prognosis and Treatment Perception Questionnaire. This questionnaire has previously been successfully used in research to assess patients' information preferences, perceptions about their prognosis and the goals of therapy and communication preferences about end-of-life care. Secondary endpoints will be (a) patients' preferences for receiving prognostic information assessed through the Prognosis and Treatment Perception Questionnaire (b) symptoms of depression evaluated through the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2), (c) symptoms of anxiety evaluated through the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 2-item (GAD-2), (d) quality of life and (d) patients' trust in their medical team and (e) other aspects of perceived quality of care, rated on a visual analogue scale (NRS) from 0-10. Sample size and statistics: The investigators will conduct univariable and multivariable regression analyses to evaluate associations between sociodemographic or clinical variables and outcomes. The investigators aim to include 100 patients. This will give us at least 10 degrees of freedom to assess association of potential risk factors with outcome and to evaluate confounders in a multivariable analysis. Discussion: This will be the first prospective study to assess prognostic awareness among cancer patients referred to ESC services in a British setting. Identifying covariates for prognostic unawareness and psychological burden among patients with advanced cancer will inform the future development of strategies to improve care and communication with this patient group.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Enrollment: 100
• Est. completion date: October 31, 2024
• Est. primary completion date: August 31, 2024
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• All participants aged 18 and older with advanced cancer referred to the ESC team will be eligible for this study.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Younger than 18 years
• Insufficient English language to complete questionnaires
• cognitive impairment
• Participants who, in the opinion of the member of the ESC team, would not be appropriate to participate

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Advanced Cancer

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
n/a

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University College, London

References & Publications (28)

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El-Jawahri A, Traeger L, Park ER, Greer JA, Pirl WF, Lennes IT, Jackson VA, Gallagher ER, Temel JS. Associations among prognostic understanding, quality of life, and mood in patients with advanced cancer. Cancer. 2014 Jan 15;120(2):278-85. doi: 10.1002/cncr.28369. Epub 2013 Oct 10. — View Citation

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Greer JA, Pirl WF, Jackson VA, Muzikansky A, Lennes IT, Heist RS, Gallagher ER, Temel JS. Effect of early palliative care on chemotherapy use and end-of-life care in patients with metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer. J Clin Oncol. 2012 Feb 1;30(4):394-400. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2011.35.7996. Epub 2011 Dec 27. — View Citation

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Jackson VA, Jacobsen J, Greer JA, Pirl WF, Temel JS, Back AL. The cultivation of prognostic awareness through the provision of early palliative care in the ambulatory setting: a communication guide. J Palliat Med. 2013 Aug;16(8):894-900. doi: 10.1089/jpm.2012.0547. Epub 2013 Jun 20. — View Citation

Janssens A, Derijcke S, Galdermans D, Daenen M, Surmont V, De Droogh E, Lefebure A, Saenen E, Vandenbroucke E, Morel AM, Sadowska A, van Meerbeeck JP. Prognostic Understanding and Quality of Life in Patients With Advanced Lung Cancer: A Multicenter Study. Clin Lung Cancer. 2019 May;20(3):e369-e375. doi: 10.1016/j.cllc.2018.11.011. Epub 2018 Dec 13. — View Citation

Kennedy BM, Rehman M, Johnson WD, Magee MB, Leonard R, Katzmarzyk PT. Healthcare Providers versus Patients' Understanding of Health Beliefs and Values. Patient Exp J. 2017;4(3):29-37. — View Citation

Kroenke K, Spitzer RL, Williams JB. The Patient Health Questionnaire-2: validity of a two-item depression screener. Med Care. 2003 Nov;41(11):1284-92. doi: 10.1097/01.MLR.0000093487.78664.3C. — View Citation

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Kurita K, Siegler EL, Reid MC, Maciejewski RC, Prigerson HG. It Is Not What You Think: Associations Between Perceived Cognitive and Physical Status and Prognostic Understanding in Patients With Advanced Cancer. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2018 Aug;56(2):259-263. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2018.04.016. Epub 2018 May 10. — View Citation

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Mack JW, Fasciano KM, Block SD. Communication About Prognosis With Adolescent and Young Adult Patients With Cancer: Information Needs, Prognostic Awareness, and Outcomes of Disclosure. J Clin Oncol. 2018 Jun 20;36(18):1861-1867. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2018.78.2128. Epub 2018 Apr 23. — View Citation

Mayer DK, Nasso SF, Earp JA. Defining cancer survivors, their needs, and perspectives on survivorship health care in the USA. Lancet Oncol. 2017 Jan;18(1):e11-e18. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(16)30573-3. — View Citation

Sato T, Soejima K, Fujisawa D, Takeuchi M, Arai D, Nakachi I, Naoki K, Kawada I, Yasuda H, Ishioka K, Nukaga S, Kobayashi K, Masaki K, Inoue T, Hikima K, Nakamura M, Ohgino K, Oyamada Y, Funatsu Y, Terashima T, Miyao N, Sayama K, Saito F, Sakamaki F, Betsuyaku T. Prognostic Understanding at Diagnosis and Associated Factors in Patients with Advanced Lung Cancer and Their Caregivers. Oncologist. 2018 Oct;23(10):1218-1229. doi: 10.1634/theoncologist.2017-0329. Epub 2018 Aug 17. — View Citation

Shen MJ, Trevino KM, Prigerson HG. The interactive effect of advanced cancer patient and caregiver prognostic understanding on patients' completion of Do Not Resuscitate orders. Psychooncology. 2018 Jul;27(7):1765-1771. doi: 10.1002/pon.4723. Epub 2018 Apr 30. — View Citation

Shin JA, El-Jawahri A, Parkes A, Schleicher SM, Knight HP, Temel JS. Quality of Life, Mood, and Prognostic Understanding in Patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer. J Palliat Med. 2016 Aug;19(8):863-9. doi: 10.1089/jpm.2016.0027. Epub 2016 Apr 28. — View Citation

Tang ST, Chang WC, Chen JS, Chou WC, Hsieh CH, Chen CH. Associations of prognostic awareness/acceptance with psychological distress, existential suffering, and quality of life in terminally ill cancer patients' last year of life. Psychooncology. 2016 Apr;25(4):455-62. doi: 10.1002/pon.3943. Epub 2015 Aug 17. — View Citation

Tang ST, Wen FH, Hsieh CH, Chou WC, Chang WC, Chen JS, Chiang MC. Preferences for Life-Sustaining Treatments and Associations With Accurate Prognostic Awareness and Depressive Symptoms in Terminally Ill Cancer Patients' Last Year of Life. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2016 Jan;51(1):41-51.e1. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2015.08.006. Epub 2015 Sep 18. — View Citation

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* Note: There are 28 references in all — Click here to view all references

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Other	Symptoms of anxiety	Patients' symptoms of anxiety assessed through the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 2-item. This scale has a range from 0 to 6 points with higher scores indicating more symptoms of anxiety. A score of 3 points is considered a cut-off point, in which further evaluation is recommended.	within 1 week after patient assessment by the Enhanced Supportive Care Team
Other	Symptoms of depression	Patients' symptoms of depression assessed through the Patient Health Questionnaire-2. This scale has a range from 0 to 6 points with higher scores indicating more depressive symptoms. A score of 3 points is considered a cut-off point, in which further evaluation is recommended.	within 1 week after patient assessment by the Enhanced Supportive Care Team
Other	Patients' quality of life	Patients' quality of life assessed through the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer quality of life core 15 palliative questionnaire. This 15-item questionnaire, employs a 4-point Likert scale for each question, and the resulting scores are linearly transformed to a possible range of 0 to 100, where higher scores indicate a better quality of life	within 1 week after patient assessment by the Enhanced Supportive Care Team
Other	Trust in the treating oncologist	Patients' trust in the treating oncologist assessed on a numeric rating scale ranging from 0-10 with higher scores indicating more trust	within 1 week after patient assessment by the Enhanced Supportive Care Team
Other	Satisfaction with care	Patients' satisfaction with care assessed on a numeric rating scale ranging from 0-10 with higher scores indicating greater satisfaction	within 1 week after patient assessment by the Enhanced Supportive Care Team
Primary	Patients' prognostic understanding	Patients' prognostic understanding about their illness assessed through the Prognosis and Treatment Perception Questionnaire. This questionnaire assesses patient beliefs regarding the likelihood of cure, the preference for receiving prognostic information as well as the perceived helpfulness of knowing about prognosis	within 1 week after patient assessment by the Enhanced Supportive Care Team
Secondary	Perceived value of prognostic information	Assessed through the Prognosis and Treatment Perception Questionnaire. This questionnaire assesses patient beliefs regarding the likelihood of cure, the preference for receiving prognostic information as well as the perceived helpfulness of knowing about prognosis	within 1 week after patient assessment by the Enhanced Supportive Care Team