Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

Individuals with head and neck cancer (HNC) have a high emotional and physical symptom burden, but less than half of patients with significant distress access specialized services. A funded study at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre is introducing Cancer Care Ontario's Psychosocial Oncology & Palliative Care (PSOPC) Pathway into HNC clinics. The study includes clinician training and skill building in psychosocial and palliative care, use of emotional distress and physical functioning screening and the Surprise Question; "Would you be surprised if this person were to die within 1 year?" to prompt illness understanding conversations with patients, and management and documentation of emotional and physical symptoms. The study will determine whether the PSOPC pathway improves documentation of symptoms, patient experience of compassionate care, health related quality of life and illness understanding, compared to treatment as usual. Open-ended interviews with patients and caregivers during the study has resulted in a wealth of information about their perspective on what aspects of healthcare were most important to their well-being through treatment, how they define compassionate care, and how care might be improved for future patients. It is important that this information is disseminated to healthcare practitioners nationally and internationally, so that oncology teams consider these issues and this patient and caregiver perspective. This information also needs to be disseminated to policy makers so that routine pathways are put in place for screening and response to all forms of distress. This proposed KT project will disseminate the study findings, along with the team's recent literature review of ESAS symptom screening used in cancer centres across Ontario, to oncologists and oncology nurses, in order to encourage compassionate, whole person care, with improved psychosocial and palliative care integrated into cancer care.