236846 Using Patient Centered Care Approaches to Enhance Participation in Cancer Clinical Trials

Monday, October 31, 2011

Margo Michaels, MPH , Executive Director, Education Network to Advance Cancer Clinical Trials, Bethesda, MD
Natasha Blakeney, MPH , Program Director, Education Network to Advance Cancer Clinical Trials, Bethesda, MD
Adult participation in cancer clinical trials (CCTs) remains low at a rate of less than 3%. Trial staff often face challenges in effectively identifying, screening, enrolling and retaining patients for studies. Many struggle with how to achieve this most effectively, particularly when facing both patient-related barriers (e.g. fear, lack of knowledge, costs, language barriers) as well as institutional obstacles (e.g. lack of oncologist buy-in to introduce trials to eligible patients, limited staff resources for outreach and language access services). In 2010, ENACCT launched a training initiative to address these challenges with 6 Community Clinical Oncology Programs (CCOPs) nationwide. The training curriculum, Enhancing Cancer Clinical Trial Participation:A Patient Centered Approach emphasized implementation of tailored, patient-focused recruitment and retention practices, highlighting 5 key steps to patient trial participation with practical strategies and resources to successfully accomplish each step. Training activities, including case studies, role-plays and action-planning, enabled CCOP staff to identify effective approaches for engaging community providers and the public about trials, enrolling low literacy and Limited English Proficient patients, and discussing difficult questions patients may have during the consent process. Training evaluation measures included pre and post test questionnaires and completion of an online follow-up survey 3 months post training. ENACCT trained a total of 158 participants. Post training, all sites demonstrated improvement in knowledge and increased intention to make changes regarding cancer clinical trial recruitment and retention practices. This presentation will provide an overview of the training content, share outcome data, identify lessons learned from implementation and discuss future directions.

Learning Areas:
Diversity and culture
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs

Learning Objectives:
Describe ENACCT's clinical trial recruitment and retention training for research staff in community oncology practices Discuss training outcomes Discuss implications of findings and future directions

Keywords: Cancer, Clinical Trials

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a former Education Branch Chief at the National Cancer Institute and founded ENACCT which seeks to identify, implement and validate innovative community centered approaches to cancer clinical trials education. I have over 10 years of experience developing and implementing programs to educate cancer advocates, community leaders, and health care professionals about policy and scientific issues related to cancer and cancer clinical trials education.
Any relevant financial relationships? Yes

Name of Organization Clinical/Research Area Type of relationship
Novartis Not applicable Consultant
GlaxoSmithKline Not Applicable Grant funding recipient

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.