View clinical trials related to Communication.
Filter by:In Canada, the prevalence of cancer is growing and contributes significantly to health costs. The prevention and treatment of cancer is a major concern of our health system. Many men with prostate cancer develop psychological distress. The emotional consequences of a cancer diagnosis and its treatments can prevent patients from communicating effectively with their healthcare team. It is recognized that the quality of communication between cancer patients and their caregivers plays an important role in the management of their disease. However, few tools are being developed to help clinicians and patients better communicate and decrease patients' psychological distress. Let's Discuss Health (www.discutonssante.ca) is a French-language website that offers several tools to support collaboration between caregivers and cancer patients. The objectives of this research project are to assess the experience of using the Let's Discuss Health website and the impact of its use on the quality of communication between radiation oncologists and patients, the level of distress of patients with prostate cancer, recall of the information discussed as well as adherence to the trajectory in radiation oncology. The project will take place in three radiation oncology centers in Quebec. Two groups of prostate cancer patients will be recruited. Patients in the first group will be assessed on the basis of regular consultations and those in the second group will be encouraged to prepare for their medical visits using the Let's Discuss Health website. Patients and their caregivers will answer short questionnaires before and after four targeted consultations (initial visit, mid-treatment visit, end-of-treatment visit and 3-month post-treatment visit). Focus groups will also be organized to explore the impact of the website. This project offers the potential to transform clinical practices in radiation oncology to reduce the burden of cancer and improve the quality of care offered to patients with cancer.
The purpose of this study is to test the effectiveness of the Best Case/Worst Case-ICU communication tool on quality of communication, clinician moral distress, and ICU length of stay for older adults with serious traumatic injury. Investigators will follow an estimated 4500 patients aged 50 years and older who are in the ICU for 3 or more days and survey 1500 family members and up to 1600 clinicians from 8 sites nationwide.
The KOMPAT study aims to evaluate the effectiveness and feasibility of a needs-based communication skills training for nursing professionals in Germany and to derive recommendations for future long-term implementation. Therefore, a training program to foster communication skills of nursing professionals has been developed based on a previously conducted needs assessment and literature research. To evaluate the training a randomized controlled trail with a waitlist-control group will be conducted. It is aimed to include 180 nurses within the study, of which 90 nurse will be randomized in a stratified manner to the intervention group and 90 nurses will be randomized to the waitlist-control group. Outcomes will be assessed at baseline, post -training and 4-weeks follow-up. It is hypothesized that self-efficacy in communication with patients and further outcomes will be significantly higher among participants in the intervention group compared to participants of the waitlist-control group during post-training assessment and follow-up. The evaluation will be accompanied by a process evaluation. The training will be facilitated by a member of the research team and a nursing professional by applying the train-the-trainer approach. The KOMPAT study will be conducted at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.
This study will evaluate evidence-based treatments for adults with mild Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA). The aim of the study is to help identify efficacious communication and quality of life interventions for those with PPA and their care-partners. Participants with a diagnosis of PPA and their actively-engaged care partners will be involved in the study for 12 months. Each participant will receive a iPad equipped with the necessary applications and features for the study. Participants will complete evaluations, speech therapy sessions with a speech and language therapist, and sessions with a licensed social worker or related clinician. They will have access to Communication Bridge, a personalized web application to practice home exercises that reinforce treatment strategies. There are no costs to participate in this study.
To translate our evidence-based, parent-engagement safe teen driving intervention to a high-risk, rural and urban teen drivers with a traffic violation, and to test the implementation, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of the proposed intervention.
Background Improving patient-provider communication is a fundamental and cost-effective method to advance patient outcomes, including symptom management which is often the primary goal of care for patients with advanced cancer. Unfortunately, some studies revealed the poor quality of symptom communication among cancer patients and healthcare providers. While these evidences suggest important gaps in communication about symptoms with some of the most vulnerable patients, little is known about the patterns and associating factors of symptom communication. Purpose and Specific Aims The proposed 3-year pilot project aims to provide an enrich and systematic description of symptom communication by validating a newly developed typology of interaction patterns of symptom communication (TIPSC) between patients with advanced cancer, their caregivers, and healthcare providers and explore factors related to each interaction pattern. The specific aims are to: (1) validate TIPSC in Taiwanese advanced cancer population, (2) explore patients' /caregivers' experience and thoughts of symptom discussion in regard to their interaction patterns and symptom management, and (3) examine relationships between interaction patterns and (a) demographic factors, (b) symptom severity, (c) congruence in symptom assessment between patients/caregivers and providers, (d) patients'/caregivers' perceived ability to communicate with providers, and (e) patient/caregiver satisfaction. Sampling This pilot study plans to recruit about 50 patient/caregiver - oncologist dyads. The recruitment process contains three stages. First, medical oncologists who are currently in clinical practice at participating institutions and care for patients with solid tumors will be approached. Second, participating oncologists' patients will be recruited if they are: (1) currently a patient of a participating oncologist, (2) diagnosed with stage III or IV solid cancer, (3) aged 20 years or older, (4) able to tolerate an interview that will last approximately 30 minus, and (5) able to speak Chinese or Taiwanese. Finally, if applicable, adult caregivers who intent to join selected out-patient-department (OPD) visit with the patients will also be recruited. Research Design This is a mixed-methods study with a two-phase exploratory sequential design. The first phase is a qualitative descriptive study in which the investigators will record patient/caregiver-oncologist OPD visits and conduct patient/caregiver interviews to address aim 1 and 2. Discourse and conversation analysis will be used to analyze the recorded visits and content analysis will be used to analyze the interviews. The second phase is a correlational study in which the investigators use questionnaires to measure variables and examine their relationship with interaction patterns (aim 3). Descriptive statistics, binomial logistic regression, and linear regression will be used to analyze quantitative data. Expecting Results This is a pioneering study addressing the patterns and associating factors of symptom communication in Taiwanese patients with advanced cancer. The findings will systematically map out the patient/caregiver-provider symptom communication and identify relationships between communication patterns and meaningful indicators. This proposed study is a critical step to understand patient/caregiver-provider communication regarding symptoms in order to pinpoint symptom management and communication barriers and design proper interventions in Taiwan.
To evaluate the impact of an adapted online, self-help relationship intervention (supplemented with brief coach calls) for survivors of breast cancer and their partners. Couples will be randomized to receive either the online intervention (Together after Cancer) or usual care (UC) and assessed at baseline, end of the program, and 3 months after randomization.
The goal of this study is to compare the experience of intensive care unit (ICU) families and care providers before and after the implementation of an approach whereby clinicians initiate written communication with families The main questions it aims to answer are 1. Is ICU care-provider initiated written communication feasible and acceptable to participants? 2. Does ICU care-provider initiated written communication affect the experience of families and care providers? Participants will complete surveys and participate in interviews during a 3 month pre-implementation phase and a 3 month post-implementation phase
All critically ill patients receiving mechanical ventilation experience a period of inability to speak due to the need for cuffed endotracheal or tracheostomy tubes. Consequences of the inability to speak include: significant emotional distress; unrecognized pain; sleeplessness; increased use of restraints, self-extubation and line removal, as well as injury to self and healthcare professionals. Communication methods such as word mouthing, gesticulating, and writing may be ineffective and result in frustration. Recent technological innovations include communication boards and electronic speech generating devices however these require fine motor skills and coordination which may not be intact in the chronically critically ill. The Electrolarynx was recently shown to be effective in establishing communication in a case study of an intubated patient. Despite the well-recognized deleterious consequences of speech incapacity, few studies have evaluated communication strategies in the critically ill and no published study has evaluated the Electrolarynx in this patient population. In this study, the investigators aim to assess the feasibility and patient acceptability of establishing speech with an Electrolarynx for intubated or tracheostomized patients experiencing difficult weaning and unable to tolerate cuff deflation. Feasibility will be determined by the proportion of participants able to produce intelligible and comprehensible speech. The investigators will also collect data on consent rates, reasons for refusal, the proportion of eligible patients and the time required for research procedures to inform future studies. The investigators will provide participants with a maximum of five Electrolarynx training sessions. On completion the investigators will measure speech intelligibility, comprehensibility, and patient acceptability using the Assessment of Intelligibility of Dysarthric Speech and the Ease of Communication scale. Satisfaction with communication and anxiety will be measured before and after Electrolarynx training. To the investigators' knowledge, this study will be the first to rigorously evaluate, using previously validated measures, the feasibility of the Electrolarynx for establishing communication for mechanically ventilated patients.
In 2014, a team of parents, nurses, and physicians created Patient and Family Centered I-PASS (PFC I-PASS), a bundle of communication interventions to improve the quality of information exchange between physicians, nurses, and families, and to better integrate families into all aspects of daily decision making in hospitals. PFC I-PASS changed how doctors and nurses talk to patients and families on rounds when they're admitted to the hospital. (Rounds are when a team of doctors visit patients every morning to do a checkup and make a plan for the day.) Rounds used to happen in a way that left out patients and families. Doctors talked at, not with patients, used big words and medical talk, and left nurses out. PFC I-PASS changed rounds by including families and nurses, using simple non-medical words, and talking in an organized way so nothing is left out. When PFC I-PASS was put in place in 7 hospitals, patients had fewer adverse events and better hospital experience. But it didn't focus on how to talk with patients with language barriers. This project builds upon upon PFC I-PASS to make it better and focus on the special needs of patients who speak languages other than English. This new intervention is known as PFC I-PASS+. PFC I-PASS+ includes all parts of PFC I-PASS plus having interpreters on and after rounds and training doctors about communication and cultural humility. The study team will now conduct a crossover cluster randomized controlled trial comparing PFC I-PASS+ to PFC I-PASS to usual care at 8 hospitals.