Improving Communication About Serious Illness

Summary

The purpose of this study is to improve care delivered to patients with serious illness by enhancing communication among patients, families, and clinicians in the outpatient setting. We are testing a new way to help patients share their preferences for talking about end-of-life care with their clinicians and families. To do this we created a simple, short feedback form. The form is designed to help clinicians understand what patients would like to talk about. The goal of this research study is to show that using a feedback form is possible and can be helpful for patients and their families.

Conditions

• Critical Illness
• Chronic Disease
• Terminal Care
• Palliative Care
• Communication
• Advance Care Planning
• Neoplasm Metastasis
• Lung Neoplasms
• Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive
• Heart Failure
• End Stage Liver Disease
• Kidney Failure, Chronic

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Communication Feedback Form for Patients with Serious Illness

The intervention, based on self-efficacy theory, identifies patients' preferences for communication about end-of-life care (EOLC) and barriers and facilitators to this communication, and collates these data into a feedback form. The feedback forms are tailored to each recipient (clinician, patient, family) to support the communication tasks which that recipient will address. Feedback forms are sent to participants prior to the target clinic visit. The primary clinician's form suggests referral to palliative care if there are "potentially unmet palliative-care communication needs." All forms include "tips" to help the recipient respond to communication preferences appropriately.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Washington

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• J. Randall Curtis, MD, MPH · University of Washington

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2013-09-30

Primary Completion

2016-12-31

Completion

2016-12-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations