Patient stated preferences for cancer treatment
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Patient preferences for treatment and outcomes in advanced cancer; Do preferences change after experiencing treatments?
IRAS ID
136583
Contact name
David Meads
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Leeds
Research summary
Brief for medical student project:
For every patient dealing with a new diagnosis of terminal cancer, they face a decision about possible palliative treatment – whether they wish to receive or forego it. Each patient has to weigh up the positives and negatives of each treatment and prioritise what is most important to them personally, bearing in mind that often palliative treatment can have toxic side-effects and can’t guarantee an increase in survival. As a clinician it is important to be aware of what a patient values in order to understand their treatment preference and provide them with appropriate support during the decision-making process.
The aim of the study is to determine the treatment preferences of patients with cancer before and after they receive a particular treatment. We wish to see if their preference changes following their treatment experience.We will provide the patients with a questionnaire of 3 parts: a) clinical and socio-demographic questions b) 6-8 discrete choice experiment (DCE) tasks (9) c) 2 quality of life questionnaires: the EORTC QLQ-C30 & the EQ5D.
The DCE requires the patients to consider 2 scenarios which have multiple treatment outcomes (for example survival, pain, nausea & fatigue) and decide which they prefer of the two. Patients will complete the same questionnaire twice, before and after their treatment. We anticipate there may be some loss to follow-up and so we may only be able to collect patient preferences before treatment. If so we will focus on this during our analysis.
REC name
North East - Tyne & Wear South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/NE/0311
Date of REC Opinion
4 Nov 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion