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Exploring primary care physician feedback following an integrative oncology consultation

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Abstract

Objective

To explore responses from primary care physicians (PCPs) from an integrative physician (IP) consultation and recommended integrative oncology (IO) treatment program.

Methods

Chemotherapy-treated patients were referred by their oncology healthcare professional to an IP, a physician dually trained in complementary medicine and supportive cancer care. The consultation summary and patient-centered IO treatment program was then sent to the patient’s PCP, with PCP-to-IP responses analyzed qualitatively using ATLAS.Ti software for systematic coding and content analysis. Trial Registration Number NCT01860365 published May 22, 2013.

Results

Of the 597 IP consultations conducted, 470 (78.7%) summaries were sent to patients’ PCPs, with only 69 (14.7%) PCP-to-IP responses returned. PCPs were more likely to respond if the patient was Hebrew-speaking (78.3% vs. 65.1%, P = 0.032). Systematic coding identified four predominant themes among PCP narratives: addressing the patient’s medical condition and leading QoL-related concerns; patient-centered reflections; available resources providing support and promoting resilience; and PCP attitudes to the IO treatment program.

Conclusion

PCP-IP communication can provide valuable insight into the patient’s bio-psycho-social care, addressing the patient’s health-belief model, emotional concerns, caregiver-related factors, preferences, and barriers to adherence to IO care.

Practice implications

Healthcare services should consider promoting IP-PCP communication in order to facilitate better patient outcomes from an IO treatment program.

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Data availability

The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Family Medicine, Haifa & Western Galilee District, Clalit Health Services Community Division, HaShahaf 6, Bat-Galim, Haifa, Israel

    Michael Hauzer, Ran Grimberg & Alperin Mordechai

  2. Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

    Michael Hauzer, Jamal Dagash & Eran Ben-Arye

  3. Center for Integrative Complementary Medicine, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Noah Samuels

  4. Department of Sociology, Western Galilee Academic College, Galilee, Israel

    Yael Keshet

  5. Palliative Care—Home Care Hospice, Clalit Health Services, Haifa and Western Galilee District, Jerusalem, Israel

    Jamal Dagash

  6. Integrative Oncology Program, The Oncology Service, Lin Carmel, and Zebulun Medical Centers, Clalit Health Services, Haifa, Israel

    Eran Ben-Arye

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  1. Michael Hauzer
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Contributions

We declare that all authors authentise credit author statement regarding the article “Exploring primary care physician feedback following an integrative oncology consultation.” EBA organized the trial and collected the data analyzed in this study. EBA, RG, and MH planned the study. EBA, YK, RG, and MH carried out the analysis. MH, EBA, and NS wrote a draft manuscript. All authors participated in the revision of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael Hauzer.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval

The study protocol was approved (0024–09-CMC) by the Ethics Review Board (Helsinki Committee) of the Carmel Medical Center in Haifa, Israel. The study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01860365) published on May 22, 2013. Participants signed an informed consent form before entering the study.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Michael Hauzer and Ran Grimberg should be considered co-first authors, based on their equal and significant contributions to this study.

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Hauzer, M., Grimberg, R., Samuels, N. et al. Exploring primary care physician feedback following an integrative oncology consultation. Support Care Cancer 31, 606 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-023-08079-6

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