Table 4.

Patient and Caregiver Experiences with Early Specialty Palliative Care

Positive experiences	Extra layer of support, someone to listen. (N = 10)
	Providing information about cancer and treatments, answering questions. (N = 8)
	Treating pain and other symptoms. (N = 5)
	Talking about the future, what to expect. (N = 4)
	More awareness of emotions related to illness. (N = 2)
	Ability to see both oncologist and palliative care on the same day. (N = 2)
	Knowing about palliative care service in case of future need. (N = 2)
	Help patients and caregiver talk with each other. (N = 1)
	Alleviating caregiver burden. (N = 1)
	Looking at the big picture. (N = 1)
	Helping to get information from other doctors. (N = 1)
	Coordinating care. (N = 1)
Negative experiences	Too many medical appointments, spending too long at the cancer center, long travel times, having to come to the cancer center on ‘good days’ instead of spending time with family. (N = 7)
	Hard to schedule at a convenient time. (N = 6)
	Having to think about things you do not want to think about (like living wills, severity of illness). (N = 4)
	Visits not helpful/no palliative care needs. (N = 2)
	Confronting emotions related to illness (both positive and negative). (N = 2)
	Palliative care doctors not always available to answer questions. (N = 1)

Interviews conducted with N = 14 patients and N = 13 caregivers in the Intervention Group. Some participants expressed more than one experience.