The purpose of this paper was to determine if providing patient specific Quality of Life (QL) information to clinic staff before a clinic appointment improved patient care in a lung cancer outpatient clinic. Patients were sequentially assigned to either a usual care control group or the experimental group, which completed a computerized version of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) QLQ-C30 questionnaire in order to provide the clinic staff with QL information prior to the clinic appointment. The control group completed the EORTC QLQ-C30 paper version after the clinic appointment. Outcome measures were patient satisfaction, the degree to which issues identified on the QL questionnaire were addressed in the appointment, and a chart audit, which measured charting of QL issues and actions taken by the clincian relating to QL. In the experimental group, more QL issues identified by the patient on the EORTC QLQ-C30 were addressed during the clinic appointment than in the control group. As well, marginally more categories were charted and a trend towards more actions being taken was seen in the experimental group. Patients reported being equally and highly satisfied with the treatment in both groups. The clinical implication is that the computerized administration of the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire and providing staff with a report highlighting patient-specific QL deficits is a simple, time-effective and acceptable means of improving patient-provider communication in a busy outpatient clinic. Large trials studying its effectiveness in different patient populations and regions would further elucidate the nature of this effect and potentially improve the overall quality of care that patients receive.

Aged↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Clinical trials: retrospect and prospect.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Clinical Trials as Topic↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Nitrates, nitrites and gastric cancer in Great Britain.

Nitrate and nitrite were measured in the saliva of two populations who differed in their risk of developing gastric cancer. Surprisingly, the levels of both ions were significantly higher in the low-risk group.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Cancer near nuclear installations.

The OPCS report on cancer incidence and mortality in the vicinity of nuclear installations in England and Wales provides a mass of information that is so large that it should be possible to detect quite small changes in disease levels with considerable confidence. The data on cancer mortality are less subject to selective bias than the registration data on which incidence rates are based, and they provide the firmest grounds on which evidence of any effect can be obtained. These data show conclusively that there has been no general increase in cancer mortality in the vicinity of nuclear installations in a 22-year period beginning several years after the opening of the installations that have released the largest amounts of radionuclides to the environment. On the contrary, the mortality from cancer has tended to be lower in the LAAs in the vicinity of nuclear installations than in control LAAs selected for their presumed comparability with the former. This is unlikely to be due to a protective effect of ionizing radiation and suggests that, despite the efforts that were made to choose comparable control areas, there were non-installation differences between the populations relevant to the risk of dying from one or other type of cancer. Detailed examination of the few types of cancer that were relatively more common in the installation areas suggest that several of the differences were most likely to be due to chance, diagnostic artefacts or social factors rather than to any hazard specifically related to the installations. One disease provides a possible exception: namely, leukaemia in the age group 0-24 years. Two other diseases need further investigation, multiple myeloma and Hodgkin's disease in the older age group 25-74 years. The excess mortality rates recorded from these cancers were not large, and it has yet to be established that they are not due to general confounding by other environmental or socio-economic factors.

Age Factors↗