Search

Background: Metastatic prostate cancer remains a lethal malignancy that warrants novel supportive interventions for patients and their decision partners and proxies. Decision aids have been applied primarily to patients with localized disease, with minimal inclusion of patients with advanced prostate cancer and their decision partners. The use of a community patient navigator (CPN) has been shown to have a positive supportive role in health care, particularly with individuals from minority populations. Research is needed to evaluate decision support interventions tailored to the needs of advanced prostate cancer patients and their decision partners in diverse populations.Methods: Guided by Janis and Mann's Conflict Model of Decision Making, the Cancer Health Aid to Manage Preferences and Improve Outcomes through Navigation (CHAMPION) is a randomized controlled trial to assess the feasibility and acceptability of a mobile health (mHealth), CPN-administered decision support intervention designed to facilitate communication between patients, their decision partners, and the healthcare team. Adult prostate cancer patients and their decision partners at three mid-Atlantic hospitals in the USA were randomized to receive enhanced usual care or the decision intervention. The CHAMPION intervention includes a theory-based decision-making process tutorial, immediate and health-related quality of life graphical summaries over time (using mHealth), values clarification via a balance sheet procedure with the CPN support during difficult decisions, and facilitated discussions with providers to enhance informed, shared decision-making.Discussion: The CHAMPION intervention is designed to leverage dynamic resources, such as CPN teams, mHealth technology, and theory-based information, to support decision-making for advanced prostate cancer patients and their decision partners. This intervention is intended to engage decision partners in addition to patients and represents a novel, sustainable, and scalable way to build on individual and community strengths. Patients from minority populations, in particular, may face unique challenges during clinical communication. CHAMPION emphasizes the inclusion of decision partners and CPNs as facilitators to help address these barriers to care. Thus, the CHAMPION intervention has the potential to positively impact patient and decision partner well-being by reducing decisional conflict and decision regret related to complex, treatment-based decisions, and to reduce cancer health disparities. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03327103 . Registered on 31 October 2017-retrospectively registered. World Health Organization Trial Registration Data Set included in Supplementary Materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: One way to improve the delivery of oncology palliative care in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) is to leverage mobile technology to support healthcare providers in implementing pain management guidelines (PMG). However, PMG are often developed in higher-resourced settings and may not be appropriate for the resource and cultural context of LMICs. Objectives: This research represents a collaboration between the University of Virginia and the Nepalese Association of Palliative Care (NAPCare) to design a mobile health application ('app') to scale-up implementation of existing locally developed PMG. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of clinicians within Nepal to inform design of the app. Questions focused on knowledge, beliefs, and confidence in managing cancer pain; barriers to cancer pain management; awareness and use of the NAPCare PMG; barriers to smart phone use and desired features of a mobile app. Findings: Surveys were completed by 97 palliative care and/or oncology healthcare providers from four diverse cancer care institutions in Nepal. 49.5% (n = 48) had training in palliative care/cancer pain management and the majority (63.9%, n = 62) reported high confidence levels (scores of 8 or higher/10) in managing cancer pain. Highest ranked barriers to cancer pain management included those at the country/cultural level, such as nursing and medical school curricula lacking adequate content about palliative care and pain management, and patients who live in rural areas experiencing difficulty accessing healthcare services (overall mean = 6.36/10). Most nurses and physicians use an Android Smart Phone (82%, n = 74), had heard of the NAPCare PMG (96%, n = 88), and reported frequent use of apps to provide clinical care (mean = 6.38/10, n = 92). Key barriers to smart phone use differed by discipline, with nurses reporting greater concerns related to cost of data access (70%, n = 45) and being prohibited from using a mobile phone at work (61%; n = 39). Conclusions: Smart phone apps can help implement PMG and support healthcare providers in managing cancer pain in Nepal and similar settings. However, such tools must be designed to be culturally and contextually congruent and address perceived barriers to pain management and app use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]