Objective
Despite advancements in cancer treatment, racial disparities in breast cancer survival persist, with African American women experiencing lower survival rates and poorer quality of life than non‐Hispanic White women. Using a social cognitive model of restorative well‐being as a framework, this qualitative study sought: (a) to examine strength‐ and culture‐related factors associated with African American female breast cancer survivors’ cancer coping and post‐treatment experiences and (b) to make recommendations for culturally sensitive intervention.
Methods
Eight focus groups occurred with a total of 40 local African American breast cancer survivors. Focus groups were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Framework analyses were used to identify themes. NVivo qualitative analysis software‐managed data.
Results
Two major themes emerged from the focus group discussions: (a) God enables breast cancer survivorship and works every day in our lives and (b) the healthiest thing about us is that we are strong African American women. Recommendations for intervention planning and implementation were made towards intervention structure, content development and language framing in a local context.
Conclusion
Findings suggest a need for community‐based participatory survivorship interventions that are culturally and spiritually consonant and peer‐based. Such interventions may respond to the cancer‐related and personal needs of the target population.
Objectives: To explore the perceptions of parents of pediatric patients in a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) regarding real-time open electronic health record (EHR) data displayed in patient rooms. Design: Cross-sectional qualitative interview study Setting: PICU in a large Midwestern tertiary-care children's hospital. Subjects: Parents of patients in a PICU (n=33). Measurements and Main Results: Qualitative data were collected through in-person semistructured, individual and small-group interviews. Data were collected from March to July 2016, with approval from the study hospital's institutional review board. Data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Results included positive effects of accessing real-time open EHR data on family empowerment, situation awareness, potential error detection, understanding of medical data, and facilitating discussions during rounds. Concerns were reported regarding privacy of information as well as potential misinterpretation of displayed data. We identified several ways to improve this collaborative technology to make it more family-centered. Conclusions: This study suggests that a new health information technology system providing continuous access to open EHR data may be an effective way to empower and engage parents in the PICU, but potential drawbacks were also noted. The results also provide insights into the collaborative use of health information technology in the PICU setting.
BACKGROUND: Patient contextual data (PCD) are often missing from electronic health records, limiting the opportunity to incorporate preferences and life circumstances into care. Engaging patients through tools that collect and summarize such data may improve communication and patient activation. However, differential tool adoption by race might widen health care disparities. OBJECTIVE: Determine if a digital tool designed to collect and present PCD improves communication and patient activation; secondarily, evaluate if use impacts outcomes by race. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: A pragmatic, two-armed, non-blinded, randomized controlled trial conducted during 2019 in a primary care setting.
INTERVENTION:The PCD tool (PatientWisdom) invited patients to identify preferences, values, goals, and barriers to care. Patients were randomized to a standard pre-visit email or facilitated enrollment with dedicated outreach to encourage use of the tool. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Outcomes of interest were post-visit patient communication and patient activation measured by the Communication Assessment Tool (CAT) and Patient Activation Measure (PAM), respectively. Outcomes were evaluated using treatment-on-thetreated (TOT) and intention-to-treat (ITT) principles. KEY RESULTS: A total of 301 patients were enrolled. Facilitated enrollment resulted in a five-fold increase in uptake of the PCD tool. TOT analysis indicated that the PCD tool was associated with notable increases in specific CAT items rated as excellent: "treated me with respect" (+ 13 percentage points; p = 0.04), "showed interest in my ideas" (+ 14 percentage points; p = 0.03), "showed care and concern" (+ 16 percentage points; p = 0.02), and "spent about the right amount of time with me" (+ 11 percentage points; p = 0.05). There were no significant pre/post-visit differences in PAM scores between arms (− 4.41 percentage points; p = 0.58). ITT results were similar.We saw no evidence of the treatment effect varying by race in ITT or TOT analyses. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: The inclusion of PCD enhanced essential aspects of patient-provider communication but did not affect patient activation. Outcomes did not differ by race. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clincaltrials.gov identifier: NCT03766841
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