Palliative Care for Elderly Outpatients

Summary

Our long-term goal is to improve spiritual care outcomes for elderly patients with cancer. The study team will use a spiritual intervention, Dignity Therapy (DT), to help these patients maintain pride, find spiritual comfort, enhance continuity of self, and ultimately make meaning of their life threatening illness.

Conditions

• Cancer Terminal

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Dignity Therapy - Nurse Led

The nurse-led intervention involves three sessions, each of which follows a set process. The standardize approach to the delivery of the intervention facilitates a personal process of reflection and recognition that allows the patient to make meaning of their experience.

BEHAVIORAL

Usual care

Palliative care nurses usually see patients each clinic visit to assess vital signs, function, symptoms, and to provide patient and family education. They document findings and interventions in the electronic health record (EHR). Whereas usual care for palliative care chaplaincy in the outpatient setting varies by site, chaplaincy care for usual care patients in this study will follow the usual practice for inpatient palliative care chaplaincy, which is to visit all new referrals to the clinic and assess their spiritual and religious needs. This assessment is then memorialized in a spiritual treatment plan documented in the EHR.

BEHAVIORAL

Dignity Therapy - Chaplain Led

The chaplain-led DT intervention involves three sessions, each of which follows a set process. The standardize approach to the delivery of the intervention facilitates a personal process of reflection and recognition that allows the patient to make meaning of their experience.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Cancer Institute (NCI)

  collaborator NIH

• Northwestern University

  collaborator OTHER

• Rush University

  collaborator OTHER

• Emory University

  collaborator OTHER

• M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

  collaborator OTHER

• University of California, San Francisco

  collaborator OTHER

• Healthcare Chaplaincy

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Florida

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Diana J Wilkie, PhD · University of Florida

• Tammi Quest, MD · Emory University

• George Fitchett, PhD · Rush University

• Michael Rabow, MD · University of California, San Francisco

• Linda Emanuel, MD/PhD · Northwestern University

• Marvin Delgado, MD · MD Anderson

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

NONE

Model

FACTORIAL

Eligibility

Min Age

55 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2017-07-26

Primary Completion

2022-08-31

Completion

2022-08-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations