Abstract
Objective To explore the needs of cancer patients in palliative care and to determine how care providers, including family physicians, could meet these needs more fully.
Design Qualitative study performed using semistructured interviews.
Setting Palliative care departments (ambulatory and intrahospital).
Participants Twelve patients with a diagnosis of cancer deemed to be in the palliative phase, who had already received either chemotherapy or radiation treatment.
Methods The interviews were recorded and transcribed. They were then coded and categorized to identify and define themes describing the participants’ experience. Data were collected until new interviews no longer yielded new categories of results.
Main findings Study participants primarily needed the expertise of their physicians, but they also needed reassurance by means of clear information about their disease, its treatment, and the prognosis delivered over the course of patient-physician visits, and by means of various measures that could act as safety nets. Participants needed to be heard without being judged. In terms of follow-up care, the oncology nurse navigator was just as important as the physician and could stand in for him or her to meet most relational needs and share and explain information on the disease.
Conclusion Non–family physician specialists cannot meet all of the patients’ complex needs; throughout the palliative phase, non–family physician specialists need the support of a family physician and an oncology nurse navigator. Each care provider must be made aware of the patient’s needs and ensure that they are met, to the best of his or her ability. Failing to do so might exacerbate the loneliness and anxiety experienced by terminally ill patients.
In Canada, family physicians provide a large proportion of palliative care services to patients at home and in the hospital.1–3 However, several studies report that physicians are not always comfortable having end-of-life discussions with their patients.4 Good communication needs to be focused on the needs of the patient.5,6 For this reason, the College of Family Physicians of Canada believes that a patient-centred approach and communication skills are core competencies for family physicians.7 Patient-centred approaches have been associated with a greater sense of satisfaction and control among patients, better adherence to treatment, a decrease in symptoms, and a decrease in costs to the health care system.8,9
Several patient-centred approaches have been described. Nonviolent communication (NVC), as proposed by Marshall Rosenberg, is based on the Sanskrit principle of ahimsa, embraced by Gandhi and meaning “to do no harm.” The NVC approach starts by identifying the needs of the individual, because these needs are the source of behaviour.10 This is done with the idea that acknowledging an individual’s needs is therapeutic in itself. In the process of treating incurable patients, we are constantly confronted with symptoms that do not respond to our treatment approaches. Nonviolent communication does not require care providers to meet all of a patient’s needs; it invites them to act with compassion and to at least acknowledge these needs and offer comfort. To our knowledge, there has only been one study on the use of NVC in the health sector.11 This study revealed that NVC leads to an increase in empathy in nurses.
Some authors are of the opinion that, by failing to sufficiently take patients’ needs into account, the health care system actually contributes to their suffering.12–14 In this study, we seek to answer 2 questions. First, is there a group of priority needs that all palliative care patients have and that need to be addressed during medical follow-up? And, second, how could we respond more fully to the needs of these patients?
The objective of this study was to explore the needs of cancer patients in palliative care and to determine how care providers, including family physicians, could meet these needs more fully.
METHODS
We chose to conduct in-depth interviews and use qualitative analysis to develop a detailed picture of patients’ experiences.15,16
Study population
This study was conducted in the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal in Quebec, comparable to most large North American hospitals. After the study received the approval of the research ethics board, physicians working in ambulatory palliative care clinics and oncology nurse navigators at the hospital were asked to identify patients who would qualify for the study. Patients were considered for inclusion if they were older than 18 years of age, were in the palliative phase of cancer, and had received at least 1 radiation or chemotherapy treatment. Patients were excluded if they could not communicate in French or English or had dementia or a severe psychiatric disorder that was not being managed.
Data collection
A member of the research team contacted the patients who had been identified and confirmed that they were interested in taking part (only 1 patient declined to participate at this stage); the researcher then arranged patient interviews. Participants were advised that they would also be invited to take part in a focus group to validate the study observations.
The semistructured interviews began with open-ended questions about memorable experiences that the participants had had during medical follow-up care, in terms of their needs, feelings, and expectations.
Data collection and analysis were performed concomitantly. A sampling approach aligned with our theoretical objectives17 was used progressively so that we could avoid recruiting patients of the same age, sex, and diagnosis, and so that we could expand the breadth of patient experiences included. At the same time, the questionnaire was refined by adding more detailed questions so that we could explore the content more fully and validate concepts that emerged from our concomitant analysis. Thus, questions were added to the initial questionnaire. The care providers and study participants then validated the patient needs model by means of 2 focus groups.
Data analysis
The data were analyzed in 3 phases.15 The first phase consisted of open coding of units of transcribed text, hewing as closely as possible to the participants’ own words. The second phase consisted of more in-depth coding and the definition of more abstract categories. The third and final phase consisted of a thematic analysis to identify links among the categories and to identify the concepts. Coding was done independently by the 2 researchers, who compared their results while actively looking for contradictions. Any divergence identified (< 5%) was discussed to arrive at a consensus. Saturation was achieved when new interviews no longer added new categories of results (D. Willms and N.A. Johnson, unpublished manuscript, 1999). The qualitative data were analyzed using QDA Miner, version 4.1.27.18
FINDINGS
The 12 participants who made up the final sample had been seen by physicians in an ambulatory palliative care clinic (Table 1). When a patient had a family physician, he or she was sent back to this physician unless the complexity of the case required joint follow-up by the family physician and the specialized team. Participant comments supporting our observations are provided in Table 2.
Study participants
Excerpts of participants’ comments, by theme
Themes
Patients need medical expertise, but they also have other needs.
The participants reported that they readily trusted their physicians’ clinical competence; however, they believed that purely biomedical care was not enough and that their psychological, social, and spiritual needs had to be considered as well. Some physicians did not take these other needs into account.
Patients need respect and validation of their experiences.
The participants reported that, particularly when they felt vulnerable and emotionally overwhelmed, they needed their physicians to take the time to validate their suffering and to give them permission to suffer. When this happened, a relationship of trust emerged. When it did not, the participants felt frustrated and lonely. Several participants mentioned that a gentle approach was important when the physician was sharing bad news.
Patients need their physicians to listen without judging.
There was a close relationship between the need for respect and the need to be heard. The participants wanted their physicians to be “present” and “nonjudgmental” as they listened. This particular need cannot be delegated, as it is critical to providing patients with the best possible expertise. The participants related that they were constantly interpreting their physicians’ body language for signs of attentive listening. Eye contact and sitting, rather than standing, were 2 examples of attentiveness cited.
Patients need reassurance.
The participants reported a need for reassurance. Some wanted advance notice of bad news so that they could ask a friend or family member to accompany them to the appointment—a role that could also be played by the oncology nurse navigator, who could help the patient by completing the physician’s answers and asking more questions to arrive at a better understanding of the disease.
The participants felt reassured and relieved when their physicians explained realistic alternatives to treatment, should it fail. They saw this as a safety net that enabled them to hold on to some measure of hope.
Finally, the participants reported that they needed their physicians to ensure that the participants understood the disease, the prognosis, and the treatment. This starts with something as simple as ensuring that the patient does not have a hearing problem and checking to make sure that he or she has understood. Two male participants, who described themselves as people who did not ask a lot of questions, said that they wished health professionals would take the initiative of providing them with more information. One reported that he felt great relief when his family physician sat down with him and his wife and gave them additional information.
Positive patient perceptions of the health care system.
Overall, cancer patients are satisfied with the health care system, although they do see deficiencies. Our study participants understood the limits of the system. They believed that there was a lack of resources and that it would not be reasonable to ask for more than they received. One participant said he was grateful to the system for spending tens of thousands of dollars on his care. In a similar vein, delays and wait lists were perceived to be acceptable.
Importance of the oncology nurse navigator.
Quebec has had oncology nurse navigators for a number of years. The participants were grateful for the presence of these health care professionals, who had much more frequent contact with patients. Nurse navigators can reassure patients and answer their questions, without necessarily contacting the physicians. The participants’ expectations of their health care professionals can be found in Table 3.19
Participants’ expectations of their health care professionals
DISCUSSION
Patients with cancer have needs beyond medical expertise. To optimize patient care, non–family physician specialists should enlist the support of family physicians or nurse navigators early in the process. American studies20,21 have itemized care deemed essential. All of our study participants had access to an oncology nurse navigator and a palliative care physician. Realistically, in the current medical context, there will not be a nurse navigator for every palliative care patient, which is why the family physician’s involvement throughout the care process is so important.22,23 Several participants in our study reported that they did not have enough information after their diagnosis and that they would have benefited from seeing a family physician shortly after their oncology appointment.
We observed that patients quickly trusted their physicians’ medical competence. The literature indicates that patients initially feel “social” trust in the medical institution, which trains its physicians to high standards of care. Patients then develop “interpersonal” trust on the basis of the physician’s interpersonal skills, rather than his or her clinical competence.24 For this reason, needs not related to medical expertise take on great importance.
Reassurance is one such need. Patients want to be reassured when it is realistic to do so. In our study, some patients felt hope when they knew in advance what the other treatment options were in the event that their current treatment failed. This has been found to be true in other studies as well.25–27
Being heard in a nonjudgmental, respectful manner is also important. A physician who listens attentively will be better able to select care based on the patient’s needs and values.25,28 Attentive listening can also result in a better “therapeutic presence,”29 which is linked to better quality of care.30,31 Failure to acknowledge or respect the patient’s experience is often a source of suffering and solitude for patients.32 Previous studies have noted that empathy and attentive listening gradually decrease as medical training progresses.33,34 The causes of this problem are multisystemic. Increasingly, faculties of medicine are attempting to alter their curriculum to remedy this problem.35,36
Limitations
Because we used a qualitative research method, our observations are not generalizable to the overall population; however, the composition of our sample makes it possible to draw comparisons with other similar institutions. Because our study only included cancer patients in palliative care, caution must be exercised in extrapolating the results of this study to patients with treatable cancers. Our selection process might also have weakened the strength of our study results; the patients selected might not be representative of patients who do not have access to palliative care physicians or oncology nurse navigators. We suspect that our participants would have had higher expectations of their non–family physician specialists had they not had access to these professionals. In spite of this, we believe that our study conclusions apply to family physicians who offer their patients palliative care. Other studies are needed to more clearly define the role of family physicians and oncologists in the treatment of advanced cancers in the absence of a palliative care physician or an oncology nurse navigator. Finally, as Kendall et al suggest, results for patients with cancer might not apply to patients with terminal, noncancer diseases.37
Conclusion
Despite the many positive aspects of palliative care for patients with cancer—oncology nurse navigators, for example—many improvements in service delivery could be made. In addition to care from oncologists and nurses, patients with untreatable cancers who have just received their diagnoses would benefit greatly from having a family physician able to deliver palliative care. In more challenging cases, the addition of a physician specializing in palliative care might benefit the patient. Close cooperation and communication between care providers is essential to meet the complex needs of such patients. This study confirmed that these are very vulnerable patients who have needs beyond pure medical expertise. They need to be heard, supported, informed, and reassured when it is possible to do so. They need validation of their experience. The simple act of naming a patient’s need communicates empathy and can bring relief. Each care provider has a responsibility to ensure that the needs of their patients are heard and addressed.
Notes
EDITOR’S KEY POINTS
Patients with cancer have needs beyond medical expertise. They need respect and validation of their experiences, they need to be listened to without judgment, and they need reassurance.
To optimize patient care, non–family physician specialists should enlist the support of a family physician or an oncology nurse navigator early in the process. The nurse navigator can stand in for the physician to meet most relational needs and share and explain information on the disease.
Overall, patients had positive impressions of the health care system, despite seeing deficiencies. Patients were grateful for the presence of the nurse navigators, who had frequent contact with the patients. Some patients felt hope when they knew in advance what the other treatment options were in the event that their current treatment failed.
Footnotes
This article has been peer reviewed.
La version en français de cet article se trouve à www.cfp.ca dans la table des matières du numéro de décembre 2017 à la page 945.
Contributors
Dr Melhem conducted this study during a 1-year fellowship in palliative care at the Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal. He was involved in every stage of the research: defining the research question, conducting a review of the literature, recruiting and interviewing study participants, analyzing the data, and writing this article. Dr Daneault acted as his mentor and guide for every stage of the research, performed part of the data analysis, and helped to revise the manuscript in preparation for publication.
Competing interests
None declared
- Copyright© the College of Family Physicians of Canada
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