Study protocol: the OptiScreen-Study: optimized psycho-oncological care-from screening to intervention

Tanja Zimmermann; Lara Dreismann; Viktoria Ginger; Marit Wenzel; Beate Hornemann; Franziska Dietzsch; Charis Sura; Martin Bornhäuser; Anja Mehnert-Theuerkauf; Svenja Heyne; Ines Gockel; Florian Lordick; Anke Franzke; Jürgen Weitz; Arndt Vogel

doi:10.1007/s00432-022-04368-5

Study protocol: the OptiScreen-Study: optimized psycho-oncological care-from screening to intervention

J Cancer Res Clin Oncol. 2023 Mar;149(3):1343-1354. doi: 10.1007/s00432-022-04368-5. Epub 2022 Sep 27.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany. zimmermann.tanja@mh-hannover.de.
² Department of Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.
³ National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT/UCC), University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
⁴ Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, University Medical Center Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
⁵ Department of Visceral, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery, University Medical Center Leipzig, TransplantLeipzig, Germany.
⁶ Department of Medicine (Oncology, Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Pulmonology, and Infectious Diseases), University Cancer Center Leipzig (UCCL), University of Leipzig Medical Center, Leipzig, Germany.
⁷ Comprehensive Cancer Center, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.
⁸ Department of Visceral, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
⁹ Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.

Abstract

Purpose: Adequate, needs-oriented psycho-oncological care contributes to reducing psychological distress in cancer patients and their relatives and improving quality of life. Regarding the precise determination of objective and subjective needs, there are often discrepancies in practice between the screening instrument completed by patients, the clinical impression of the treatment team, and the judgment of the psycho-oncology team.

Methods: The present multicenter study "OptiScreen", involving three German Comprehensive Cancer Centers (Hannover, Leipzig, Dresden), aims to professionalize psychosocial screening to enable targeted and needs-based allocation to psycho-oncological support. Optimization and professionalization of the screening process will be achieved by training of oncological nursing staff to improve the targeted identification of distressed patients and provide them with needs-based psycho-oncological care. The non-randomized pre-post study will include inpatients with gastrointestinal cancers from the visceral oncology centers at the three sites. First, the comparison group (CG) will be assessed of N = 300. After completion of nursing training, the intervention group (IG) with N = 600 patients will be evaluated by validated questionnaires.

Results: The aim is to reduce barriers on both the patient and treatment side by promoting interdisciplinary dialogue and linking the screening with a personal consultation offer provided by the nurses, which should help to increase utilization and reduce patients' fears, shame and information deficits.

Conclusion: It is not sufficient to establish a well-validated screening procedure, it also has to be feasible and useful in clinical practice. "OptiScreen" aims to improve the psycho-oncological care situation. In parallel, the study enables the professionalization of psycho-oncological care with the involvement of important professional groups (e.g. nursing) and thus aims to develop a "best practice model".

Keywords: Psychological distress; Psychooncology; Psychooncology care; Screening; Training for nurses.

MeSH terms

Humans
Inpatients
Medical Oncology
Multicenter Studies as Topic
Neoplasms* / therapy
Psycho-Oncology*
Quality of Life