Training Model to Advance Support of the Family as a Caregiving System in the Inpatient Oncology Setting

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK)

Status: Active, not recruiting

Conditions: Support of the Family as a Caregiving System

Treatments: Behavioral: questionnaires; Behavioral: Working with the Caregiving Family (WCF) training

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01805609

13-030

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to provide a communication training program to inpatient nurses and social workers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in order to help them assist caregiving families. The importance of this training program is that it aims to teach nurses and social workers how and when to respond more effectively and compassionately to challenges faced by caregiving families. One of the goals of this program is to address family support needs during a patient's hospitalization.

Enrollment: 80 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 12+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Participating Providers:
• Provider is an MSKCC acute care advanced practice nurse and/or inpatient social worker as per self-report.
• Plans to attend at least 4/6 the didactic training sessions, and 3/6 consolidation sessions as per self-report.

A patient will be approached if:

• Patient has been admitted to an inpatient service at MSKCC.
• Patient is able to designate at least one close person who is involved in the patient's care and is willing to participate. In the case that the patient is a minor (age 7-17 yrs), s/he will need to designate at least one close, adult person who is involved in the patient's care and is willing to participate.

Family members will be approached if:

• They were identified as a close other (including a family friend) involved in the care of an admitted patient on a participating provider's floor

Exclusion criteria

• Evidence of cognitive impairment severe enough to preclude completing survey instruments as per clinical or research staff judgment or EMR.
• Determined to not be appropriate for this study as per clinical judgment. Anyone, patient or family member, who is younger than 12 years old.
• Anyone, patient or family member, who does not speak English.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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80 participants in 1 patient group

Working with the Caregiving Family (WCF) training

Experimental group

Description:

This is a new training curriculum for inpatient oncology providers called Working with the Caregiving Family (WCF) training, a program designed to teach MSKCC inpatient staff to address family-level concerns during acute hospitalization. The WCF training will teach staff to recognize and inquire about areas of family distress that are likely to impact the caregiving process; to provide brief, supportive interventions, and/or to transition families to specialized support services when needed. We will provide staff with skills to address especially challenging family situations (e.g., noncompliance with medical care, conflict, poor communication) in collaborative and compassionate ways. We will teach clinicians to intervene and respond more effectively when problematic relationships develop within families or between families and larger systems (e.g., medical team, institutional programs).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Working with the Caregiving Family (WCF) training

Behavioral: questionnaires