Assessment of Comskil Training Through Videorecording and Patient Surveys

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Comskil Training

Treatments: Behavioral: video-recording and completing a survey

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00943813

09-043

Details and patient eligibility

About

At Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center the investigators want to provide the best care to their patients. One way to do this is to evaluate the ways that doctors communicate with patients. To this end, the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences runs a Communication Skills Training and Research Laboratory. One goal of this laboratory is to evaluate doctor-patient communication and provide training in how to improve the quality of this communication.

Invitation to participate in this pilot project does not mean that a problem with communication has been identified in your doctor's practice. Rather, it is because your doctor and the fellow working with your doctor have agreed to cooperate with us as the investigators develop strategies to train physicians, nurses and other clinical personnel to communicate with cancer patients in as effective and sensitive a manner as possible.

Enrollment: 55 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 19+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Over 18 years of age;
• Able to understand and provide signature on permission form (Appendix II)
• Able to speak and read English

Exclusion criteria

• Evidence of cognitive impairment severe enough to preclude giving permission to the study staff, or completing the survey instrument of the study.

Trial design

55 participants in 1 patient group

Patients in clinic waiting room

Description:

When patients are approached in the clinic, they will be given the permission form and asked to participate in the assessment through allowing video-recording and completing the survey. Procedures will be similar to our current operations, with the RSA starting the video-recording equipment before the fellow enters the room and stopping it when the fellow leaves the room. One additional step will be added: When the RSA goes into the room to turn off and remove the video-recording equipment, she will also give the patient the survey, to complete. We expect this survey to take no longer than 5 minutes. In our experience, it is usually at least 10 minutes from when the fellow leaves the room until the attending comes back into the room. Thus, we believe there will be sufficient time for the patient to complete the survey.

Treatment:

Behavioral: video-recording and completing a survey