Patient values and treatment preferencesConsidering patient values and treatment preferences enhances patient involvement in rectal cancer treatment decision making
Section snippets
Study population
This study was conducted in six of the 21 radiotherapy centres in The Netherlands in the context of a large multicentre study on communication and treatment decision making during decision consultations on PRT for rectal cancer [18]. All patients eligible for short-course PRT followed by a low-anterior resection (sphincter-saving operation) were eligible for inclusion.
All radiation oncologists working in one of these centres and treating patients with rectal cancer were asked to participate.
Procedure
Results
We approached 128 eligible patients, all diagnosed between November 2010 and April 2014. Twelve patients (9%) could not be reached and twenty-one (17%) refused to participate. Ninety-five patients (74%) agreed to have their consultation audiotaped. Five of them were excluded from the analyses because of incomplete audiotaping. Of the remaining 90 patients, 60 (67%) completed the post-consultation questionnaire, a median of 4 days after the consultation (range, 0–13). No significant differences
Discussion
The SDM model states that after informing patients on possible treatment options, possible benefits and harms and their respective probabilities, patients’ values and preferences should be clarified or elicited in the decision making process [2], [14], [15].
The first aim of this study was to assess the extent to which rectal cancer patients voice their values regarding benefits and harms of PRT and their treatment preferences during decision consultations. In less than half of the
Funding
This work was supported by the Dutch Cancer Society (Grant No. UL2009-4431). The study sponsor had no involvement on the study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, in the writing of the manuscript, and in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
Conflict of interest
The authors have declared no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgements
We thank all participating patients and radiation oncologists for their efforts.
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