Patient Satisfaction With Breast and Colorectal Cancer Survivorship Care Plans

Abstract

Cancer survivors face several challenges following the completion of active treatment, including uncertainty about late effects of treatment and confusion about coordination of follow-up care. The authors evaluated patient satisfaction with personalized survivorship care plans designed to clarify those issues. The authors enrolled 48 patients with breast cancer and 10 patients with colorectal cancer who had completed treatment in the previous two months from an urban academic medical center and a rural community hospital. Patient satisfaction with the care plan was assessed by telephone interview. Overall, about 80% of patients were very or completely satisfied with the care plan, and 90% or more agreed that it was useful, it was easy to understand, and the length was appropriate. Most patients reported that the care plan was very or critically important to understanding an array of survivorship issues. However, only about half felt that it helped them better understand the roles of primary care providers and oncologists in survivorship care. The results provide evidence that patients with cancer find high value in personalized survivorship care plans, but the plans do not eliminate confusion regarding the coordination of follow-up care. Future efforts to improve care plans should focus on better descriptions of how survivorship care will be coordinated.About 12.5 million people in the United States were living with a personal history of cancer in 2009, including more than 2.5 million women with breast cancer and more than 1 million men and women with colorectal cancer (Howlader et al., 2012). An extensive body of research provides evidence that cancer survivors frequently experience late effects fromNo financial relationships relevant to the content of this article have been disclosed by the independent peer reviewers or editorial staff.Sprague can be reached at brian.sprague@uvm.edu, with copy to editor at CJONEditor@ons.org. (Ganz, 2000;Harrington, Hansen, Moskowitz, Todd, & Feuerstein, 2010;Hewitt, Greenfield, & Stovall, 2005;Stein, Syrjala, & Andrykowski, 2008;Strieker & Jacobs, 2008). A landmark report by the Institute of Medicine (Hewitt et al., 2005) recognized that the system of delivering care to the growing number of cancer survivors was inadequate. Specifically, it suggested that the transition of medical care following cancer treatment often is not well coordinated, and many cancer survivors and providers are unaware of late effects and heightened health risks related to the cancer and its treatment. A key recommendation of the report was that patients with cancer completing primary treatment should be provided with a survivorship care plan that includes a comprehensive treatment and care summary and follow-up plan. HHS Public AccessAlthough the Commission on Cancer (2012) added the provision of a survivorship care plan to its cancer program standards, sparse evidence exists regarding the effectiveness and optimal content of care plans (Salz, Oeffinger, McCabe, Layne, & Bach, 2012). Two sma...

Survivorship care plan preferences of cancer survivors and health care providers: a systematic review and quality appraisal of the evidence

“…Cancer survivors agreed, when asked, that TS/SCPs were useful and effective, particularly for written documentation of treatment [22,34,35,38,39,41,42,[51][52][53], while survivors' preferences reported in Faul et al indicated that the provision of the TS/SCP reduced worry [38]. Two studies did not show an overwhelming survivor preference of web-based/electronic TS/SCP over a printed paper copy [39,43]; however, Mayer et al indicated survivor preference for a face-to-face consultation [43].…”

“…Thirteen studies (45 %) utilized a known TS/SCP template in the methodological design. The ASCO template (n=5) was the most commonly used [31,35,37,38,44] followed by LIVESTRONG TM [40,43] and Journey Forward [21,51]. Mayer et al [43] queried participants on their preferences of four TS/SCP templates (ASCO, Journey Forward, LIVE STRONG TM , and the South Atlantic Division of American Cancer Society SCP).…”

Assessment of the feasibility and acceptability, and pre-test of the utility of an individualized survivorship care plan (ISCP) for women with endometrial cancers during the transition of the end of active treatment to cancer survivorship

“…The ISCP meets these needs for information and improves knowledge of the illness and treatments (Curcio et al, 2012;Faul et al, 2012). According to Sprague et al (2013), survivors are satisfied with the ISCP and find it to be useful and to facilitate an understanding of their diagnoses, treatments, follow-up, and the recommended health-promoting behaviour. Feeling informed would seem to help in planning changes in behaviour and foster responsibility for one's health (Hill-Kayser et al, 2013).…”

Is There a Role for Primary Care in the Follow-Up of Colorectal Cancer Patients? The Case of a Portuguese University Hospital

“…The ongoing discussion in the scientific community about the role of primary care in the follow-up of cancer patients and the need to define a clinical pathway, clarify the follow-up objectives, and identify a discharge cut-off from hospital to primary care, as well as a higher focus on survivorship are considered essential pillars [25][26][27]. The moment of discharge is considered critical and is aligned with cancer survivors' concerns about the format and content of the information shared at the moment of discharge from hospital, among others [28][29][30].…”