Background: Survivorship care plans (SCP) are recommended for use with all people living with cancer to support communication, surveillance and management of survivorship issues. The implementation of SCPs is challenging due to numerous barriers including the time taken to complete them, timing, content and which health professional should complete the SCP consultation. ‘My Personal Plan’ is a patient-centred prostate cancer survivorship care plan based on the Prostate Cancer Survivorship Essentials Framework (4). The Essentials Framework was developed by a panel of experts and consumers from Australia and New Zealand to guide the provision of integrated quality prostate cancer survivorship care.
Aim 1: Develop a generic cancer SCP based on the principles of the Essentials Framework and ‘My Personal Plan’
Aim 2: Determine the feasibility and acceptability of the new generic cancer SCP to cancer survivors and clinicians.
Method:
Study design: A convergent mixed methods study
Setting and participants: i) Cancer survivors (breast, lung, head and neck cancer and bone marrow transplant) who have completed at least one treatment type; and ii) Clinicians working with these four cancer groups.
Sample size: Cancer survivors (N=40, (n=10 each cancer group)). Clinicians (N=12) including medical, nursing and allied health. This sample size was chosen to enable deep exploration of views of My Personal Plan.
Phase 1:
a) Cancer survivors
Survey – Open ended questions about survivorship challenges and supports that have helped to navigate these challenges.
Semi-structured interviews – feedback on the Essentials Framework and My Personal Plan and preferences for changes to reflect their survivorship experiences and needs.
b) Clinicians
Survey – Open and closed ended questions rating usefulness and importance of the essential framework components, My Personal plan sections and prior experience using SCPs.
Semi-structured interviews – further feedback on My Personal Plan and barriers and enablers for implementation of My Personal Plan into practice.
Phase 2
Data synthesis – Survey and interview responses will be analysed using descriptive statistics (quantitative data) and thematic analysis (qualitative data) to inform the required changes to My Personal Plan for wider use.
Survey - Clinicians and survivors will complete another survey rating the importance and acceptability of the generic My Personal Plan using the theoretical framework of acceptability.
Phase 3
Pilot the generic My Personal Plan with n=40 cancer survivors (n=10 from each cancer group).
Outcomes: This study will inform the revision of the prostate cancer version of the My Personal Plan for generic use.