What prostate cancer patients should know: variation in professionals' opinions

This study was designed to determine what questions health-care professionals think should be addressed with curable prostate cancer patients before treatment decisions are made.

A survey was distributed to radiation oncologists, urologists, medical oncologists, nurses and radiation therapy technologists (RTTs) involved in treating prostate cancer patients. Participants were asked to judge the importance of addressing each of 78 questions (essential/important/no opinion/avoid) with a described hypothetical patient prior to the treatment decision. Eighty participants were later selected at random for a retest.

The overall response rate was 55% (284/518) on the initial survey and 56% (45/80) on the retest. The relative importance of the various questions was similar across groups (r(76) ranged from 0.75 to 0.91, all P<0.001). Despite the between-group similarity, opinions within each group varied widely. For example, among oncologists, the number of questions deemed essential by individual respondents ranged from five to 69, with >90% respondent agreement on only 15 of the 78 questions. The extent of agreement was similar in the other groups. The retest showed that essential and important responses were reasonably stable, i.e. 92% of questions judged essential at one time were judged either essential (58%) or important (34%) at the other time.

Although the relative importance of addressing the various questions appears similar across the professional groups involved in the care of prostate patients, within each profession there seems to be little agreement. The lack of agreement includes both how many questions are essential to address and whether or not most individual questions are essential.