-
J Pain Symptom Manage · Sep 2023
A Worksheet to Facilitate Discussions of Values for Patients with Metastatic Cancer: a Pilot Study.
- Noah J Mathis, Hadley Maya, Amanda Santoro, Meredith Bartelstein, Max Vaynrub, Jonathan T Yang, Erin F Gillespie, Anjali V Desai, and Divya Yerramilli.
- Department of Radiation Oncology (N.J.M., A.S., D.Y.), Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USA.
- J Pain Symptom Manage. 2023 Sep 1; 66 (3): 242247.e1242-247.e1.
ContextIndividual goals and values should drive medical decision making for patients with serious illness. Unfortunately, clinicians' existing strategies to encourage reflection and communication regarding patients' personal values are generally time-consuming and limited in scope.ObjectivesHerein, we develop a novel intervention to facilitate at-home reflection and discussion about goals and values. We then conduct a pilot study of our intervention in a small population of patients with metastatic cancer.MethodsWe first engaged former cancer patients and their families to adapt an existing serious illness communication guide to a worksheet format. We then distributed this adapted "Values Worksheet" to 28 patients with metastatic cancer. We surveyed participants about their perceptions of the Worksheet to assess its feasibility.ResultsOf 30 patients approached, 28 agreed to participate. Seventeen participants completed the Values Worksheet, and of those 11 (65%) responded to the follow-up survey. Seven of eleven reported that the Values Worksheet was a good use of time, and nine of eleven would be likely to recommend it to other patients with cancer. Eight of ten reported mild distress, two of ten reported moderate to severe distress.ConclusionThe Values Worksheet was a feasible way to facilitate at-home discussions of goals and values for select patients with metastatic cancer. Further research should focus on identifying which patients are most likely to benefit from the Values Worksheet, and should employ the Worksheet as one tool to facilitate reflection on the questions that arise around serious illness, as an adjunct to serious illness conversations with a physician.Copyright © 2023 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*
,_underline_
or**bold**
. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>
and subscript<sub>text</sub>
. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3.
, hyphens-
or asterisks*
. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
- Images can be included with:
![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
- For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)
inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]
to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote.
.