Get started
Work

No time for reflection: Patient experiences with treatment‐related decision‐making in advanced prostate cancer

Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: BACKGROUND: The rationale of the study was the predominant understanding that patient involvement in treatment-related decision-making is essential and that communication with cancer patients can affect their quality of life, satisfaction with care, and psychosocial and medical outcomes positively. AIM: This study explored how patients with advanced prostate cancer experience the communication with health professionals and their experiences of how and by whom treatment-related decisions were made. METHODS: A phenomenological-hermeneutic research design was applied, and data were collected using qualitative interviews supplemented with participant observations in a urological outpatient clinic at a regional hospital in Denmark. Thirteen patients participated. Data were analysed using Ricoeur's theory of interpretation. FINDINGS: The patients experienced the course as being routine and that decisions related to treatment were made in advance. Three themes were identified: (1) Fast track diagnosing and treatment, (2) Off course I should have this treatment, and (3) They don't ask about existential issues. CONCLUSION: The study concluded that patients experienced communication primarily revolved around disease- and treatment-related issues and that it was characterised as efficient and straightforward, but insufficient. The patients experienced that the doctors made treatment-related decisions without involving them.
DOI: 10.1111/scs.12794
Language: English
Open Access status: green
Award: G94765995
OpenAlex ID: W2942880809
FWCI: 1.871
Cites: 22
Cited by: 16
Related to: 10