Electronic Psycho-oncological Adaptive Screening Program

Background: Psychological burden in cancer patients may worsen quality of life and even medical outcomes such as mortality. Nevertheless, many distressed patients are not recognized by the treating clinicians and left untreated even though effective psychosocial interventions exist. Existing screenings programs have multiple limitations such as the necessity of time consuming training and involvement of clincial staff, conventional screening instruments with limited diagnostic accuracy and the focusing on objective measures of distress, thereby neglecting subjective supportive care needs. Aims: To address some of the limitations outlined above, we developed an electronic psycho-oncological adaptive screening program (EPAS) which separately assesses distress and psychosocial care needs and provides immediate patient feedback with individualized recommendations about psychosocial care services. Design: Patients of the intervention are compared to a control condition. All participants are assessed at three measurement points (baseline, and at 3-months and 6-months follow-up). Outcomes: Outcomes assess aspects related to psychosocial care services, well-being and satisfaction. Recruitment: Patients are recruited within suitable health care facilities within the University Cancer Center Hamburg (UCCH) and other facilities in the competence network of the UCCH. Patients are checked for eligibility via review of the medical chart and consecutively recruited by research assistants. Duration of the study: From start of recruitment, 2 years are planned until data analysis. 1 year is planned for recruitment. Analyses: We conduct group comparisons in the study outcomes, both unconditional and condcitional (controlled for care relevant co-variates).