Article Text
Abstract
Objectives Patients’ needs are still underestimated during the course of cancer. The development of a simple and accessible screening tool to screen supportive care needs is an innovative approach to improve the cancer care pathway. The Supportive Care sCore (SCC) is a new tool developed to trigger alerts on the main supportive care needs, such as social, nutritional, physical, pain or psychological disorders. We aimed to develop and validate the SCC tool in identifying supportive care needs.
Methods The SCC, the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) and the EuroQol-5 Dimension (EQ-5D) questionnaire (for quality of life) were distributed to patients with cancer over a week in an ambulatory hospital of an oncology department. Acceptability was measured by assessing the fill rate. Validity of alerts generated by the SCC was assessed by their consistency with the ESAS and EQ-5D scores.
Results One hundred patients were included, with an average age of 67.2 years. Acceptability was good with a fill rate of over 90%. For a priori-defined risk groups by SCC with alert or not, the ESAS symptom score and quality of life differed significantly (p<0.05) between groups. We observed higher ESAS symptom scores in the alert group (nutritional alert-appetite: 4 (SD 2.4) vs 0 (SD 2.6), p<0.001; physical alert-fatigue: 4 (SD 1.7) vs 2 (SD 2.2), p<0.001; psychological alert-depressed: 3.5 (SD 2.7) vs 0 (SD 1.5), p<0.001). Quality of life was poorer in each domain of the EQ-5D in the alert group.
Conclusions Our study demonstrates the construct validity of SCC, which holds promise in identifying supportive care needs.
- cancer
- symptoms and symptom management
- quality of life
Data availability statement
No data are available.
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Data availability statement
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Footnotes
Contributors Conception and design of study: MC and FS. Acquisition of data: MC. Analysis and interpretation of data: JS, P-AL and MC. Drafting the manuscript: MC. Revising the manuscript critically for important intellectual content: P-AL, JS, PB and FS. Approval of the version of the manuscript to be published: MC, P-AL, JS, PB and FS. Responsible for the overall content as guarantor: MC.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests FS reports personal fees from Helsinn, MSD, Roche, Amgen, Pierre Fabre Oncology, Pfizer, Mundipharma, Mylan and Leo Pharma, outside the submitted work. PB declares conflict of interest with BMS and MSD.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.