Acceptability of the Distress Thermometer and Problem List to community-based telephone cancer helpline operators, and to cancer patients and carers

BMC Cancer

Research Article

Hilary Sargeant¹  Karen L Hughes²  Anna L Hawkes³ 

[1] Cancer Counselling Service, Cancer Council Queensland, Brisbane, Australia;School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia;Viertel Centre for Research in Cancer Control, Cancer Council Queensland, Brisbane, Australia;School of Public Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia;

关键词: National Comprehensive Cancer Network;    National Comprehensive Cancer Network;    Numeric Scale;    Problem List;    Distress Thermometer;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2407-11-46

 received in 2010-01-07, accepted in 2011-01-31,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundCancer can be a distressing experience for cancer patients and carers, impacting on psychological, social, physical and spiritual functioning. However, health professionals often fail to detect distress in their patients due to time constraints and a lack of experience. Also, with the focus on the patient, carer needs are often overlooked. This study investigated the acceptability of brief distress screening with the Distress Thermometer (DT) and Problem List (PL) to operators of a community-based telephone helpline, as well as to cancer patients and carers calling the service.MethodsOperators (n = 18) monitored usage of the DT and PL with callers (cancer patients/carers, >18 years, and English-speaking) from September-December 2006 (n = 666). The DT is a single item, 11-point scale to rate level of distress. The associated PL identifies the cause of distress.ResultsThe DT and PL were used on 90% of eligible callers, most providing valid responses. Benefits included having an objective, structured and consistent means for distress screening and triage to supportive care services. Reported challenges included apparent inappropriateness of the tools due to the nature of the call or level of caller distress, the DT numeric scale, and the level of operator training.ConclusionsWe observed positive outcomes to using the DT and PL, although operators reported some challenges. Overcoming these challenges may improve distress screening particularly by less experienced clinicians, and further development of the PL items and DT scale may assist with administration. The DT and PL allow clinicians to direct/prioritise interventions or referrals, although ongoing training and support is critical in distress screening.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Hughes et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.