Table 3.
Patient Knowledge about Palliative Chemotherapy before and after the Decision Aid
| PRE | POST | CHANGE | COMMENT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Can this person with cancer in the bones and lymph nodes be cured by medical treatment? | Yes = 14 | Yes = 8 | Changed from yes to no = 6; changed from no to yes = 1 | Correct answer "no" P = 0.15 Fischer's exact test |
| No = 11 | No = 17 | |||
| Don't know = 2 | Don't know = 2 | |||
|
| ||||
| 52.5 ± 32 | 47 ± 26 | −5.8 ± 28 | The correct answer is 0%; all overoptimistic | |
|
| ||||
| What is the chance of her ___ cancer shrinking by half? In % | 60 ± 32 | 57.5 ± 17.6 | −4.2 ± 28 | All overoptimistic |
|
| ||||
| What is the chance of ___ cancer symptoms being helped? In % | 87 ± 19 | 74.2 ± 21 | −6.7 ± 26 | All overoptimistic |
|
| ||||
| How long does the average person live with advanced ___ cancer (using the choices from the breast cancer sheet for example)? | More realistic, but 2 people increased their expected length of survival | |||
| More than 3 years | 18 | 14 | −4 | |
| About 2 years | 6 | 11 | 5 | |
| About 6 months | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Just a few weeks | 1 | 0 | −1 | |
| Don't know/NA | 2 | 2 | 2 | |
|
| ||||
| Distress observed by interviewer, nurse, or oncologist | No | No | ||
Categorical variables Yes and No analyzed by Fischer's exact test
Numerical variables analyzed by Student's t-test, unpaired; none significant