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Oncologists’ perceptions of the usefulness of cancer survivorship care plan components

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Abstract

Purpose

The Institute of Medicine recommends that cancer patients receive survivorship care plans (SCP) summarizing information important to the individual’s long-term care. The various components of SCPs have varying levels of evidence supporting their impact. We surveyed medical oncologists to better understand how they perceived the relative value of different SCP components.

Methods

Medical oncologists caring for patients in diverse US practice settings were surveyed (357 respondents; participation rate 52.9%) about their perceptions of the usefulness of various components of SCPs to both patients and primary care physicians (PCPs).

Results

Oncologists perceived treatment summaries as “very useful” for PCPs but were less likely to perceive them as “very useful” for patients (55% vs. 40%, p < 0.001). Information about the psychological effects of cancer (41% vs. 29%; p < 0.001) and healthy behaviors (67% vs. 41%; p < 0.001) were considered more useful to patients than to PCPs. From 3 to 20% of oncologists believed that any given component of the SCP was not useful to either PCPs or patients. Oncologists who perceived SCPs to be more useful tended to be female or to practice in settings with a fully implemented electronic health record.

Conclusions

Oncologists do not perceive all components of SCPs to be equally useful to both patients and PCPs. To be successfully implemented, the SCP should be efficiently tailored to the unique needs and knowledge of patients and their PCPs. A minority of oncologists appear to be late adopters, suggesting that some resistance to the adoption of SCPs remains.

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Funding

The work of the CanCORS Consortium was supported by grants from the NCI to the Statistical Coordinating Center (U01 CA093344) and the NCI-supported Primary Data Collection and Research Centers (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Cancer Research Network U01 CA093332, Harvard Medical School/Northern California Cancer Center U01 CA093324, RAND/UCLA U01 CA093348, University of Alabama at Birmingham U01 CA093329, University of Iowa U01 CA093339, University of North Carolina U01 CA093326) and by a Department of Veterans Affairs grant to the Durham VA Medical Center CRS 02-164.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, Department of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    David A. Haggstrom

  2. Regenstrief Institute, Inc., Center for Health Services Research, 1101 West Tenth Street, Indianapolis, IN, 46202, USA

    David A. Haggstrom

  3. Center for Health Information and Communication, Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, Health Services Research and Development Service, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    David A. Haggstrom

  4. David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Katherine L. Kahn

  5. RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, USA

    Katherine L. Kahn

  6. Office of Disease Prevention, Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Carrie N. Klabunde

  7. City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, Beckman Research Institute, Duarte, CA, USA

    Stacy W. Gray

  8. Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Nancy L. Keating

  9. Division of General Internal Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Nancy L. Keating

Authors
  1. David A. Haggstrom
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  2. Katherine L. Kahn
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  3. Carrie N. Klabunde
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  4. Stacy W. Gray
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  5. Nancy L. Keating
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David A. Haggstrom.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Haggstrom, D.A., Kahn, K.L., Klabunde, C.N. et al. Oncologists’ perceptions of the usefulness of cancer survivorship care plan components. Support Care Cancer 29, 945–954 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-020-05531-9

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