Association between perception of care coordination and health outcomes in Korean cancer survivors.

BACKGROUND: To determine relationship between cancer survivors' perception of care coordination and their health outcomes. METHODS: Study subjects were 1306 Korean adulthood cancer survivors who were enrolled in two academic hospital and completed a questionnaire consisting of questions asking two aspects of care coordination for cancer treatment they had received: 1) who played a main coordinator role and 2) whether care services had met their necessitated health concerns. We measured health outcomes including new comorbidity, number of clinic visits, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and fear of cancer recurrence (FCR). Associations between the level of care coordination and health outcomes were evaluated by multiple logistic regression analysis after adjusting for covariates. RESULTS: Survivors with uncoordinated care were more likely to have more new comorbidities after cancer diagnosis, visit clinic more frequently and have worse HRQoL and higher FCR. Females and unmarried survivors were more likely to have received uncoordinated care than males and ever married survivors. Uncoordinated care group had an increased the risk of new comorbidity (odds ratio 1.73, [95% confidence interval] 1.02-2.92), multiple clinic visits (1.69, 1.00-2.88), severe FCR (2.28, 1.33-3.93), low EuroQoL Visual Analogue Scale (1.82, 1.28-2.60), low global health status (1.51, 1.04-2.21), and poor physical (2.00, 1.31-3.04), role (2.46, 1.69-3.56) and emotional function (2.62, 1.81-3.78). CONCLUSIONS: Coordinated care of Korean cancer survivors was associated with their health outcomes, including new comorbidity, clinic visits, HRQoL and FCR. Good care coordination may be reinforced to improve outcomes of survivorship care.

Validation of the Korean Version of the Breakthrough Pain Assessment Tool in Cancer Patients.

CONTEXT: Breakthrough cancer pain has not been properly evaluated and treated because there are relatively few available measurements. The Breakthrough Pain Assessment Tool (BAT) is currently recognized as a brief, multidimensional, and reliable measurement. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to validate the Korean version of the BAT (BAT-K) in adult cancer patients. METHODS: We conducted a forward-backward translation and cross-cultural equivalence test. The psychometric properties with 120 cancer patients were assessed using factor analysis, reliability, and validity. RESULTS: The Korean translation was well accepted by participants. Factor analysis revealed the presence of two underlying factors: frequency/severity and duration/medication efficacy. Cronbach alpha coefficient was 0.743. Severity, distress, and disruption of normal life showed strong reliability. The intraclass correlation for the test-retest reliability was 0.782 (95% confidence interval 0.694-0.854). The BAT-K had significant correlations with the Brief Pain Inventory, Pain Management Index, and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status (all P values < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The BAT-K is a valid and reliable measurement of breakthrough cancer pain in Korean cancer patients.