"A strong reason why I enjoy coming to work": Clinician acceptability of a palliative and supportive care intervention (PACT) for older adults with acute myeloid leukemia and their care partners

Abstract

Introduction: Studies about clinician acceptability of integrative palliative care interventions in the inpatient and outpatient cancer settings are limited. In this study, we examined clinician acceptability of a NIH-funded interdisciplinary PAlliative and Supportive Care inTervention (PACT) for older adults with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and their care partners that transcends both inpatient and outpatient settings.

Materials and methods: Data was collected using semi-structured interviews with clinicians who were directly involved in PACT. The domains of the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability were used to guide the qualitative analysis.

Results: The clinicians consisted of occupational therapists (37%), physical therapists (25%), registered nurses (25%), and a clinical rehabilitation manager (13%). Five themes were identified in the thematic analysis: (1) Emotions and affect towards the intervention, (2) Intervention coherence and self-efficacy, (3) Barriers, burden, and opportunity costs of delivering the intervention, (4) Usefulness and effectiveness of the intervention, and (5) Recommendations to improve intervention delivery.

Discussion: All clinicians found the PACT intervention highly acceptable and expressed the positive impact of the intervention on job fulfillment and satisfaction. Our findings provide evidence to inform the delivery and implementation of future large scale integrative palliative care intervention trials.

Keywords: Acceptability; Acute myeloid leukemia; Clinicians; Intervention; Job fulfillment; Palliative care; Qualitative; Supportive care.