|
 "We thought they would want it to be in person or by email, but it
turned out that the phone was most preferred; it's quick and it also
gives them the chance to ask questions," said co-author Dr. Maria
Wei, director of the melanoma surveillance clinic at the University
of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
Wei and colleagues surveyed 298 patients examined at melanoma
clinics at UCSF, the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University
to see how they wanted to be informed of their test results.
On average, participants were about 54 years old. About half were
men and the group was predominantly white. Almost nine in 10 had a
previous history of melanoma and about one-third had a family
history of this type of skin cancer.
The group was well-educated; about 34 percent went to graduate
school and roughly 48 percent went to college.
Most patients in the study had either what's known as stage 0
melanoma, when the cancer hasn't grown deeper than the top layer of
skin, known as the epidermis, or stage 1, when the tumor is very
thin and less likely to spread.
Before they knew if they would need biopsies, patients were asked
how they would want to receive biopsy results. About two-thirds
wanted to speak directly to their physician by phone, and another 20
percent preferred to return to the clinic to get results in person.
Not many people wanted to get a voicemail though, an option
preferred by just 5 percent of participants, the same proportion who
said they'd like to get results by accessing an online patient
portal system.
Less than 3 percent preferred email, and even fewer patients
expressed interest in receiving text messages.
More than half of the study participants said they would make the
same choice whether the biopsy was positive or negative for cancer.
Doctors also said phone calls work best, though they were less
likely to make the call themselves for a negative result.
The researchers surveyed 84 physicians to get their take on the
ideal way to share test results. This group was younger, 43 years
old on average, and had typically been practicing medicine for about
11 years.
To deliver bad news, about 57 percent of doctors would pick up the
phone, compared with just 31 percent for good news. Their second
choice in either situation was to delegate the call to an assistant.
Like their patients, few favored email.
[to top of second column] |
To some extent, people may have chosen the most familiar option.
Patients at Duke, where an online patient portal has been up and
running for longer, were most likely to choose this option, though
it was still their second choice after a phone call. Face-to-face
communication, the second choice at UCSF and UPenn, was preferred by
only 5.6 percent of patients at Duke.
Limitations of the study include its small sample size and its focus
on academic medical centers, where patient populations can be
different from those at local clinics in the community, the
researchers note in JAMA Dermatology. Ethnic minorities and people
with limited English skills were not well-represented either, they
acknowledge.
And there’s no way to know if patients getting biopsies for other
forms of cancer would have the same set of preferences.
Still, online portals and electronic communication are likely to
gain in popularity as they become more commonplace and simpler for
patients and physicians to navigate, said Dr. Jennifer Stein, a
dermatologist at New York University School of Medicine who wrote an
editorial accompanying the study.
"As generations change and as technology changes, we may be moving
more in that direction," Stein said. "As we move toward more
patient-centered care, this shows that just asking a patient how
they want to receive information can be really illuminating."
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1EKVbkD
and http://bit.ly/1HmJm1J JAMA Dermatology, online April 1, 2015.
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
