The "Hand-in-Hand Study": Improvement of Quality of Life in Palliative Cancer Patients Through Collaborative Advance Care Planning
NCT ID: NCT03387436
Last Updated: 2019-06-20
Study Results
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Basic Information
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UNKNOWN
NA
280 participants
INTERVENTIONAL
2017-12-04
2020-09-01
Brief Summary
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The intervention especially developed for this study trys to reduce psychosocial barriers that make conversations about these topics difficult. The study will measure the effect of the intervention on patients and caregivers quality of life.
The study will give additional information about implementation of advance care planning interventions in different care settings in a complex health care systems.
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Detailed Description
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This study (randomized controlled trial) will evaluate effectiveness of a new type of advance care planning (ACP) intervention in different palliative care settings in Germany. The study addresses a new concept of ACP called collaborative advance care planning (cACP). This new concept is focusing on psychosocial barriers of patients and caregivers in addition to a standardized ACP process in order to reduce distress of patients and care-givers and enhance the chance of successful ACP-implementation. The main research questions are: a) Can cACP improve quality of life in palliative patients and caregivers?, b) Does cACP reduce distress in patients and caregivers and enhance consistency of end-of-life care? and c) Does cACP improve quality of end of life care and reduce utilization of health care resources? The investigators will try to answer theses research questions through a so called "randomized controlled trial" methodology. Admissible palliative cancer patients who are willing to participate in the trial will be randomly assigned to three groups. The first group will receive treatment as usual for palliative care patients. The second group will receive treatment as usual and an unspecific psychological intervention (sham-intervention). The third group will receive treatment as usual and the intervention designed for this trial. Both interventions will be equally long in duration and will be delivered by the same psychologists.
The primary outcome is the quality of life at 16 weeks measured by the internationally recognized "Functional Assessment of Cancer - General Version (FACT-G)" questionnaire. Secondary endpoints include measurements of the development of QoL over time, distress, depression, and the quantity of advance directives in the different groups.
Patients will be recruited in four different recruiting sites: a palliative care ward in an university hospital, an oncologists office, a rehabilitation clinic, and an outpatient palliative care network.
The study will recruit 90 patients in every group, 270 patients in total.
Conditions
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Study Design
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RANDOMIZED
PARALLEL
1. palliative treatment as usual (TAU)
2. sham-intervention + (TAU)
3. study-intervention + (TAU)
Stratification will be carried out for sex, and availability of a care giver.
SUPPORTIVE_CARE
DOUBLE
Patients only know if they are in one of the intervention groups or in TAU. All other study personnel will be blinded.
Study Groups
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1.) Treatment as usual (TAU)
Patients assigned to this arm will receive palliative treatment as usual.
No interventions assigned to this group
2.) Sham-Intervention
Patients assigned to this arm will receive an sham intervention with unspecific supportive therapy (i.e. listening, empathy etc., but no specific intervention rationale) and palliative treatment as usual.
Sham-Intervention
The sham intervention does not target the specific topics of the study intervention group (i.e. no special focus an ACP or end of life communication). Supportive therapy uses common factors of psychotherapy such as elicitation of affect, reflective listening, and feeling understood, but provides no explicit theoretical formulation to the patient. The therapist tries to elicit and validate the patients' affect for instance on the realization that there is no curative treatment option. Supportive therapy has been used as an unspecific control condition in several studies (Cohen et al. 2011; Markowitz et al. 1998). Patients of the sham intervention will be informed about the benefits of advance directives in general.
3.) Study-Intervention
Patients assigned to this arm will receive the study-intervention and palliative treatment as usual.
Study-Intervention
The design of the study-intervention was influenced by dignity therapy (Chochinov et al. 2005), the End-of-life-Review (Ando et al. 2010) and barriers concerning participation of ACP identified by research (Bollig et al. 2017; Gjerberg et al. 2015). It is the goal of the study-intervention to enhance communication about death related topics of patients and their relatives/caregivers.
Our study intervention extends over six therapeutic sessions. The length of each session will be adjusted to the patients physical condition, it should not exceed 45 minutes in total.
In the first four sessions, patients and relatives will be informed about the relevance of ACP. Potential barriers for an efficient patient-caregiver communication and ACP are discussed. The intervention focuses on encouraging end-of-life communication and on jointly modifying barriers to EOL communication.
The fifth and sixth session focus on ACP based on the standardised concept of "beizeiten begleiten".
Interventions
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Sham-Intervention
The sham intervention does not target the specific topics of the study intervention group (i.e. no special focus an ACP or end of life communication). Supportive therapy uses common factors of psychotherapy such as elicitation of affect, reflective listening, and feeling understood, but provides no explicit theoretical formulation to the patient. The therapist tries to elicit and validate the patients' affect for instance on the realization that there is no curative treatment option. Supportive therapy has been used as an unspecific control condition in several studies (Cohen et al. 2011; Markowitz et al. 1998). Patients of the sham intervention will be informed about the benefits of advance directives in general.
Study-Intervention
The design of the study-intervention was influenced by dignity therapy (Chochinov et al. 2005), the End-of-life-Review (Ando et al. 2010) and barriers concerning participation of ACP identified by research (Bollig et al. 2017; Gjerberg et al. 2015). It is the goal of the study-intervention to enhance communication about death related topics of patients and their relatives/caregivers.
Our study intervention extends over six therapeutic sessions. The length of each session will be adjusted to the patients physical condition, it should not exceed 45 minutes in total.
In the first four sessions, patients and relatives will be informed about the relevance of ACP. Potential barriers for an efficient patient-caregiver communication and ACP are discussed. The intervention focuses on encouraging end-of-life communication and on jointly modifying barriers to EOL communication.
The fifth and sixth session focus on ACP based on the standardised concept of "beizeiten begleiten".
Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria
* Patient with advance cancer in palliative setting
* positive surprise question: the physician will not be surprised, if the patient died in the next 12 month
* Patient is willing to take part in the study
Exclusion Criteria
* Patients ECOG-status is \> 3
* Patient is not able to speak German
* Patient is incapacitated to give informed consent
18 Years
ALL
No
Sponsors
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Philipps University Marburg
OTHER
German Federal Ministry of Education and Research
OTHER_GOV
Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy
UNKNOWN
PD. Dr. med. Carola Seifart
OTHER
Responsible Party
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PD. Dr. med. Carola Seifart
Sponsor-Investigator
Principal Investigators
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Carola Seifart, PD Dr. med
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Philipps University Marburg
Pia von Blanckenburg, Phd.
Role: STUDY_DIRECTOR
Philipps University Marburg, Department of Psychology, Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy
Locations
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Philipps University, Departement of Psychology, Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychtherapy
Marburg, , Germany
Philipps University
Marburg, , Germany
Countries
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Central Contacts
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Facility Contacts
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References
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Ando M, Morita T, Akechi T, Okamoto T; Japanese Task Force for Spiritual Care. Efficacy of short-term life-review interviews on the spiritual well-being of terminally ill cancer patients. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2010 Jun;39(6):993-1002. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2009.11.320.
Chochinov HM, Hack T, Hassard T, Kristjanson LJ, McClement S, Harlos M. Dignity therapy: a novel psychotherapeutic intervention for patients near the end of life. J Clin Oncol. 2005 Aug 20;23(24):5520-5. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2005.08.391.
Bollig G, Rosland JH, Gjengedal E, Schmidt G, May AT, Heller A. A European multicenter study on systematic ethics work in nursing homes. Scand J Caring Sci. 2017 Sep;31(3):587-601. doi: 10.1111/scs.12373. Epub 2016 Aug 26.
Weitzner MA, Jacobsen PB, Wagner H Jr, Friedland J, Cox C. The Caregiver Quality of Life Index-Cancer (CQOLC) scale: development and validation of an instrument to measure quality of life of the family caregiver of patients with cancer. Qual Life Res. 1999;8(1-2):55-63. doi: 10.1023/a:1026407010614.
Weitzner MA, McMillan SC. The Caregiver Quality of Life Index-Cancer (CQOLC) Scale: revalidation in a home hospice setting. J Palliat Care. 1999 Summer;15(2):13-20.
Cohen L, Parker PA, Vence L, Savary C, Kentor D, Pettaway C, Babaian R, Pisters L, Miles B, Wei Q, Wiltz L, Patel T, Radvanyi L. Presurgical stress management improves postoperative immune function in men with prostate cancer undergoing radical prostatectomy. Psychosom Med. 2011 Apr;73(3):218-25. doi: 10.1097/PSY.0b013e31820a1c26. Epub 2011 Jan 21.
Markowitz JC, Kocsis JH, Fishman B, Spielman LA, Jacobsberg LB, Frances AJ, Klerman GL, Perry SW. Treatment of depressive symptoms in human immunodeficiency virus-positive patients. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1998 May;55(5):452-7. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.55.5.452.
Mack JW, Nilsson M, Balboni T, Friedlander RJ, Block SD, Trice E, Prigerson HG. Peace, Equanimity, and Acceptance in the Cancer Experience (PEACE): validation of a scale to assess acceptance and struggle with terminal illness. Cancer. 2008 Jun;112(11):2509-17. doi: 10.1002/cncr.23476.
Zeng L, Bedard G, Cella D, Thavarajah N, Chen E, Zhang L, Bennett M, Peckham K, De Costa S, Beaumont JL, Tsao M, Danjoux C, Barnes E, Sahgal A, Chow E. Preliminary results of the generation of a shortened quality-of-life assessment for patients with advanced cancer: the FACIT-Pal-14. J Palliat Med. 2013 May;16(5):509-15. doi: 10.1089/jpm.2012.0595. Epub 2013 Apr 16.
Miller DC, Sanda MG, Dunn RL, Montie JE, Pimentel H, Sandler HM, McLaughlin WP, Wei JT. Long-term outcomes among localized prostate cancer survivors: health-related quality-of-life changes after radical prostatectomy, external radiation, and brachytherapy. J Clin Oncol. 2005 Apr 20;23(12):2772-80. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2005.07.116.
Kroenke K, Spitzer RL, Williams JB. The PHQ-9: validity of a brief depression severity measure. J Gen Intern Med. 2001 Sep;16(9):606-13. doi: 10.1046/j.1525-1497.2001.016009606.x.
Heckel M, Bussmann S, Stiel S, Weber M, Ostgathe C. Validation of the German Version of the Quality of Dying and Death Questionnaire for Informal Caregivers (QODD-D-Ang). J Pain Symptom Manage. 2015 Sep;50(3):402-13. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2015.03.020. Epub 2015 Jun 14.
Prigerson HG, Maciejewski PK, Reynolds CF 3rd, Bierhals AJ, Newsom JT, Fasiczka A, Frank E, Doman J, Miller M. Inventory of Complicated Grief: a scale to measure maladaptive symptoms of loss. Psychiatry Res. 1995 Nov 29;59(1-2):65-79. doi: 10.1016/0165-1781(95)02757-2.
Cella DF, Tulsky DS, Gray G, Sarafian B, Linn E, Bonomi A, Silberman M, Yellen SB, Winicour P, Brannon J, et al. The Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy scale: development and validation of the general measure. J Clin Oncol. 1993 Mar;11(3):570-9. doi: 10.1200/JCO.1993.11.3.570.
Mehnert, Anja; Müller, Diana; Lehmann, Claudia; Koch, Uwe (2006): Die deutsche Version des NCCN Distress-Thermometers. In: Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, Psychologie und Psychotherapie 54 (3), S. 213-223. DOI: 10.1024/1661-4747.54.3.213.
Ware J Jr, Kosinski M, Keller SD. A 12-Item Short-Form Health Survey: construction of scales and preliminary tests of reliability and validity. Med Care. 1996 Mar;34(3):220-33. doi: 10.1097/00005650-199603000-00003.
Lumbeck, Gudrun; Brandstätter, Monika; Geissner, Edgar (2012): Erstvalidierung der deutschen Version des "Inventory of Complicated Grief" (ICG-D). In: Zeitschrift für Klinische Psychologie und Psychotherapie 41 (4), p. 243-248.
Seifart C, Koch M, Herzog S, Leppin N, Nagelschmidt K, Riera Knorrenschild J, Timmesfeld N, Denz R, Seifart U, Rief W, Von Blanckenburg P. Collaborative advance care planning in palliative care: a randomised controlled trial. BMJ Support Palliat Care. 2024 Jul 2:spcare-2023-004175. doi: 10.1136/spcare-2023-004175. Online ahead of print.
Seifart C, Koch M, Leppin N, Nagelschmidt K, Knorrenschild JR, Timmesfeld N, Rief W, von Blanckenburg P. Collaborative advance care planning in advanced cancer patients: col-ACP -study - study protocol of a randomised controlled trial. BMC Palliat Care. 2020 Aug 24;19(1):134. doi: 10.1186/s12904-020-00629-7.
Other Identifiers
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01GY1708
Identifier Type: OTHER_GRANT
Identifier Source: secondary_id
01GY1708
Identifier Type: -
Identifier Source: org_study_id
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