Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
Julie Berrett-Abebe , Peter Maramaldi , Tamara Cadet
Background: Growing numbers of cancer survivors are increasingly receiving care from primary care providers (PCPs), who often lack cancer-specific expertise. In addition to long-term effects from cancer, survivors tend to be older with multiple chronic conditions, often leaving psychosocial concerns such as fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) unaddressed. This study reports the development and testing of a continuing education intervention to train PCPs to identify and address FCR. Methods: The training was developed through key-informant interviews with 42 health care professionals, researchers, and cancer survivors. The 30-minute training was then delivered and pilot-tested with a total of 46 participants, including physicians, PAs, NPs, nurses, and social workers in six discrete primary care practices. A one group pre-test, post-test design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the training. Participants completed self-report surveys consisting of 5 domains developed from Social Cognitive Theory and Kirkpatrick’s Evaluation of Training Programs. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, paired-sample t-tests, and ANOVAs. Results:± 10.9. Participants reported high levels of confidence that the training would change their practice, although they also identified barriers to action. Results of t-tests indicated that the training significantly increased participants’ knowledge and self-efficacy. With the except of 1 knowledge domain, no significant differences were found in multivariate analyses. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that a brief, on-site interprofessional training is feasible in a range of primary care practices, well-received by participants, and achieved goals of improved knowledge, self-efficacy and confidence to implement anticipated practice behavior changes. Such training efforts are important, as quality healthcare for increasing numbers of cancer survivors can be improved through continuing education efforts for their PCPs.
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