Effects of a Self-Monitoring Quality of Life Intervention in Outpatients with Breast Cancer: A Preliminary Report of A Randomized Controlled Trial.

OBJECTIVE: This preliminary report used data from a randomized controlled clinical trial to investigate the beneficial effects of a self-monitoring quality of life (SMQOL) intervention on communication, medical care and patient outcomes in Japanese women with breast cancer. METHODS: This study compared a SMQOL intervention group with a control group that received usual care after 4 months on self-efficacy aspects of patient-physician communication among outpatients with breast cancer in Japan using the Perceived Efficacy in Patient-Physician Interactions (PEPPI) questionnaire. Patients were randomly assigned to the intervention and control groups using permuted-block randomization. The intervention groups were asked to complete a paper-based quality-of-life (QOL) questionnaire in addition to the usual care provided in the control group. Analysis of covariance was used to assess the difference in PEPPI scores between the intervention and control groups. Additionally, subgroup analyses were performed for outpatients with breast cancer accompanied by depression or anxiety. RESULTS: In total, 232 patients were eligible for this study and randomized. Seven patients did not answer the PEPPI questionnaire at baseline after group allocation, leaving 225 patients for inclusion in the analyses. The modified intention-to-treat ITT analysis showed the SMQOL intervention had no significant effect on PEPPI total score (P = 0.226). We found a significant between-group difference in PEPPI total score in the anxiety group (P = 0.045), namely, the self-efficacy aspects of patient-physician communication of those with anxiety in the intervention group were better than for those in the control group after 4 months. CONCLUSION: Use of the SMQOL had beneficial effects on communication self-efficacy between patients and physicians for outpatients with breast cancer, those with anxiety.

Validity and Reliability of the Japanese Version of the 10-Item Perceived Efficacy in Patient-Physician Interactions (PEPPI-10) Scale in Breast Cancer Outpatients.

The 10-item Perceived Efficacy in Patient-Physician Interactions (PEPPI-10) questionnaire was used as an indirect measure of the patients' perception of the strength of their therapeutic connection with their physician. The English version of the PEPPI-10 could serve as a valuable research tool for analyzing the relationship between patient and physician. The incidence of breast cancer is amongst the highest in Japan, and Patient Reported Outcome is often used as an outcome measure for breast cancer. It is particularly important to establish a strong patient-physician interaction for patients with breast cancer, since these patients require long-term treatment. We designed the present study to assess the reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the PEPPI-10 in female Japanese breast cancer outpatients. A cross-sectional study was performed at the Saitama Cancer Center, Japan. From August 2014 to August 2015, the Japanese versions of the PEPPI-10 that measure patient-perceived self-efficacy and the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (BIPQ) that measure illness perception were used for 92 breast cancer patients who received outpatient chemotherapy (mean age: 52.9 years, Cancer Stage I or Stage II : 82.6%, receiving adjuvant chemotherapy: 69.6%). We found that the Japanese version of the PEPPI-10 scale had a high coefficient of internal consistency (Cronbach's α coefficient, 0.83) for reliability, and concurrent validity analysis indicated that the utility of PEPPI-10 was moderately correlated with that of the BIPQ. In conclusion, the Japanese version of the PEPPI-10 is a useful tool that can empower breast cancer outpatients during the course of their treatment.