Background: Although patients with advanced cancer often have poor prognostic awareness, the most effective communication approach for improving prognostic awareness is unclear. In addition, the association between prognostic awareness and preferences for future medical treatment remains unexplored.
Materials and methods: We performed a prospective observational study of consecutive patients with advanced or post-operative recurrent non-small cell lung cancer whose disease had progressed after first-line chemotherapy, and their caregivers. We evaluated patterns of clinical discussions about incurability, prognostic awareness, and preference for future medical treatment at baseline and 3 months later.
Results: We obtained 200 valid responses to the questionnaires at baseline and 147 valid responses 3 months later. In addition, 180 caregivers returned valid responses. A total of 54% of patients and 51% of caregivers had accurate awareness at baseline, and 52% of patients had accurate awareness 3 months later. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that patients who were informed about incurability in recent and past discussions were significantly more likely to have accurate awareness 3 months later, compared with those who were only informed recently (adjusted odds ratio 5.08; 95% CI, 1.31-19.78; P = .019). Accurate awareness at 3 months was significantly negatively associated with preference for life-prolonging treatment at 3 months after adjusting for covariates (adjusted odds ratio 0.39; 95% CI, 0.17-0.90; P = .028).
Conclusion: Patients with advanced cancer who had both recent and past discussions about incurability with their oncologists have more accurate prognostic awareness. Improving prognostic awareness could reduce the preference for life-prolonging treatment.
Keywords: advance care planning; awareness; communication; end-of-life discussion; lung cancer; neoplasms; palliative care.
© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press.