Exploring Family Physician Training Needs to Improve Cancer Patient Care.

Family physicians have multifaceted roles in cancer patient care and oncology education among this group is unfortunately inadequate. This study explored the needs and perspectives of family physicians regarding their oncology training and experiences. As well, physician cancer care experiences, knowledge use, and continuing education practices were elucidated. The authors employed a qualitative approach with family physicians participating in semi-structured interviews. General practitioners in oncology were excluded. Purposeful sampling was used, with recruitment through Ontario regional primary cancer care leads and social media. Interviews were transcribed, and thematic analysis was conducted. Thirteen participants were interviewed-1.6:1 female: male, ages 30-39, practicing for an average of 9 years (0.5-30 years), with urban and suburban practices. Most trained in Canada as undergraduates and completed their residency in Ontario; 62% had participated in at least one oncology continuing medical education session. Three major themes emerged: delineation of roles, oncology knowledge and education, and palliative care. Participants reported role uncertainty after cancer diagnosis, with oncology teaching at all levels described as lacking relevance. Palliative care rotations were an avenue for oncology education and where participants returned to cancer care. Changing existing teaching, information access, and avenues of oncology experiences may be the next step to supporting successful cancer care by family physicians.

Predictors of prostate cancer survivors' engagement in self-management behaviors.

INTRODUCTION: Prostate cancer survivors experience a multitude of late treatment effects, resulting in greater unmet needs, elevated symptom burden, and reduced quality of life. Survivors can engage in appropriate self-management strategies post-treatment to help reduce the symptom burden. The objectives of this study were to: 1) survey the unmet needs of prostate cancer survivors using the validated Cancer Survivor Unmet Needs instrument; 2) explore predictors of high unmet needs; and 3) investigate prostate cancer survivors' willingness to engage in self-management behaviors. METHODS: Survivors were recruited from a prostate clinic and a cross-sectional survey design was employed. Inclusion criteria was having completed treatment two years prior. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize participant characteristics. Univariate and multivariate analyses were done to determine predictors of unmet needs and readiness to engage. RESULTS: A total of 206 survivors participated in the study, with a mean age of 71 years. Most participants were university/college-educated (n=123, 61%) and had an annual household income of ≥$99 999 (n=74, 38%). Participants reported erectile dysfunction (81%) and nocturia (81%) as the most frequently experienced symptoms with the greatest symptom severity χ̄=5.8 and χ̄=4.5, respectively). More accessible parking was the greatest unmet need in the quality-of-life domain (n=34/57, 60%). Overall, supportive care unmet needs were predicted by symptom severity on both univariate (p<0.001) and multivariate analyses (odds ratio [OR ] 1.81, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.92-1.00, p<0.001). Readiness to engage in self-management was predicted by an income of <$49 000 (OR 3.99, 95% CI 1.71-9.35, p=0.0014). CONCLUSIONS: Income was the most significant predictor of readiness to engage in self-management. Consideration should be made to establishing no-cost and no-barrier education programs to educate survivors about how to engage in symptom self-management.

Prostate cancer survivor capacity to engage in survivorship self-management: a comparison of perceptions between oncology specialists, primary care, and survivors.

PURPOSE: The rapidly increasing number of prostate cancer survivors in tandem with a forthcoming shortage of oncology specialists in our health system poses a barrier to ensuring that high-quality survivorship care is available to support this population. As such, there is a need to consider ways to optimize survivorship care, while taking health system constraints into account. The purpose of this study is to explore the perceptions of survivorship self-management between oncology specialists, primary care providers (PCPs), and survivors themselves. METHODS: A single cross-sectional survey, relating to how prostate cancer survivorship care could be improved, was administered to each group. RESULTS: Two hundred forty-three participants (N = 206 survivors, N = 10 oncology specialists, N = 27 PCPs) completed the study survey. Most PCPs (90%) and oncology specialists (84%) perceived that an opportunity for prostate cancer survivors to have an expanded role in their care would be beneficial. Nearly half (49%) of survivors reported that it would be beneficial to have an expanded role in their survivorship care with only 11% indicating that it would not be beneficial at all. CONCLUSIONS: Barriers to developing this model involve limited oncology specialist time to execute survivorship plans, limited communication between oncology specialists and PCPs, and a lack of primary care and survivor education targeted specifically to prostate cancer survivorship.

Oncology education for family medicine residents: a national needs assessment survey.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to determine the current state of oncology education in Canadian family medicine postgraduate medical education programs (FM PGME) and examine opinions regarding optimal oncology education in these programs. METHODS: A survey was designed to evaluate ideal and current oncology teaching, educational topics, objectives, and competencies in FM PGMEs. The survey was sent to Canadian family medicine (FM) residents and program directors (PDs). RESULTS: In total, 150 residents and 17 PDs affiliated with 16 of 17 Canadian medical schools completed the survey. The majority indicated their programs do not have a mandatory clinical rotation in oncology (79% residents, 88% PDs). Low rates of residents (7%) and PDs (13%) reported FM residents being adequately prepared for their role in caring for cancer patients (p = 0.03). Residents and PDs believed the most optimal method of teaching oncology is through clinical exposure (65% residents, 80% PDs). Residents and PDs agreed the most important topics to learn (rated ≥4.7 on 5-point Likert scale) were: performing pap smears, cancer screening/prevention, breaking bad news, and approach to patient with increased cancer risk. According to residents, other important topics such as appropriate cancer patient referrals, managing cancer complications and post-treatment surveillance were only taught at frequencies of 52, 40 and 36%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Current FM PGME oncology education is suboptimal, although the degree differs in the opinion of residents and PDs. This study identified topics and methods of education which could be focussed upon to improve FM oncology education.

A "Tea and Cookies" Approach: Co-designing Cancer Screening Interventions with Patients Living with Low Income.

BACKGROUND: In our primary care organization, we have observed income gradients in cancer screening for our patients despite outreach. We hypothesized that outreach strategies could be improved upon to be more compelling for our patients living with low income. OBJECTIVE: To use co-design to adapt our current strategies and create new strategies to improve cancer screening uptake for patients living with low income. DESIGN: An exploratory, qualitative study in two phases: interviews and focus groups. PARTICIPANTS: For interviews, we recruited 25 patient participants who were or had been overdue for cancer screening and had been identified by their provider as potentially living with low income. For subsequent focus groups, we recruited 14 patient participants, 11 of whom had participated in Phase I interviews. APPROACH: To analyse written transcripts, we took an iterative, inductive approach using content analysis and drawing on best practices in Grounded Theory methodology. Emergent themes were expanded and clarified to create a derived model of possible strategies to improve the experience of cancer screening and encourage screening uptake for patients living with low income. KEY RESULTS: Fear and competing priorities were two key barriers to cancer screening identified by patients. Patients believed that a warm and encouraging outreach approach would work best to increase cancer screening participation. Phone calls and group education were specifically suggested as potentially promising methods. However, these views were not universal; for example, women were more likely to be in favour of group education. CONCLUSIONS: We used input from patients living with low income to co-design a new approach to cancer screening in our primary care organization, an approach that could be broadly applicable to other contexts and settings. We learned from our patients that a multi-modal strategy will likely be best to maximize screening uptake.