Group Advanced Care Planning Pilot for Veterans

VA Palo Alto Health Care System

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Cancer

Treatments: Behavioral: Group Advance Care Planning Education

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT06646614

67728

Details and patient eligibility

About

The proposed research aims to engage participants in group educational sessions to facilitate learning of topics related to advanced care planning and to determine whether this approach is more effective than usual care alone.

Full description

The purpose of this study is to compare usual care against a group advanced care planning intervention comprised of two sessions led by trained community health workers or health educators from VA Palo Alto. A total of 60 participants will be randomly assigned to either usual care (n=30) or usual care + group advanced care planning intervention (n=30). Those in usual care will be mailed some educational materials about advanced care planning that they may review independently. Those in the group advanced care planning arm will participate in two 60-90 minute educational sessions led by a community health worker/educator that will either be conducted in person on-site, by VA-approved video conference, or a hybrid model. Topics will include an introduction to advanced care planning, goals of care topics, advance directives, and physicians order of life sustaining treatment. Both usual care and the group advanced care planning arms will also participate in pre/post surveys and/or interviews.

Enrollment: 50 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

1. All patients >18 years old with newly diagnosed cancer are eligible.
2. Patients must have the ability to understand and willingness to provide verbal consent
3. Participants must speak English

Exclusion criteria

1. Inability to consent to the study
2. Plans to move within the area and leave the VA system within 4 months

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Triple Blind

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50 participants in 2 patient groups

Usual Care

No Intervention group

Description:

The patient will continue to receive as normal and usual care. The participant will also receive educational materials in writing regarding advance care planning mailed to their preferred mailing address. The participants will complete surveys and interviews at baseline at again at 8 weeks post enrollment.

Group Advance Care Planning

Experimental group

Description:

The participant will engage in 2 hours of educational sessions regarding advance care planning and goals of care. They will be interviewed which is expected to last 20-30 min and surveys will last 15-20 min. The total involvement will be no more than 3 hours and 40 min over 8 weeks.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Group Advance Care Planning Education