Node/Sub-node	Description
Communication with Health Care Team
Advocating for self	Comments related to patient as advocate or lack of advocate and/or patient assertiveness to obtain care or information in the clinical encounter OR Explicit deference to physician or other decision makers
Communicating about prognosis and treatment goals	Comments related to patient’s communication with provider about prognosis of disease and goals for treatment.
Context for communicating	Comments related to patient’s background informing healthcare communication style/preferences,
Discussing difficult topics	Comments related to topics that are difficult to broach with healthcare providers. Do not use this code for discussing difficult topics with non-health care providers
Improving Communication	Comments related to how to improve communication with their care provider
Prognosis and Treatment Goals	Comments related to patient’s communication with provider about prognosis of disease and goals for treatment.
Comprehension and Usability
Having adequate time	Comments related to timing of completion of distress tool at appointment
Missing stressors	Comments related to problems missing from problem list or misclassification of a problem on the problem list. Can also include need for clarification or specificity of a problem on the list.
Understanding instructions	Comments related to ease or lack thereof in interpreting the survey and survey directions including terminology around problem list stressors.
Experiences related to or causing distress	Discussion of positive or negative emotions related to health or other life experiences
Caregiving	Comments related to experience caring for others and/or navigating the medical system to care for a family member or close relationship.
Dealing with family	Comments related to how the patient communicates with family and friends including difficult topics. Also includes references to illness and problems in the family that may lead to patient distress without direct caregiving on the part of the patient.
Experiencing emotions	Comments related to mental symptoms and associated distress. Code anxiety, worry, anger depression implied through tone as well as directly stated.
Experiencing pandemic	Comments related to distress or negative emotion related to the COVID-19 pandemic
Experiencing other serious illness	Comments related to experience caring for self or utilizing healthcare for medical problems other than uterine cancer
Experiencing physical symptoms	Comments related to physical symptoms including associated distress. Symptoms could be related to cancer, cancer treatment, or other conditions the patient is experiencing.
Understanding prognosis and treatment	Comments related to patient’s perceived prognosis from disease and goals for treatment. Do not code references to communication with healthcare providers about prognosis and treatment under this code.
Experiencing bias	Comments related to experiences with race and racism with healthcare providers or outside of the healthcare encounter and/or any sequalae.
Potential protective factors
Having faith	Comments related to faith or god in relation to coping with or managing illness/stressors
Having support	Comments related to support or lack thereof derived from family or close relationships.
Navigating health information	Comments related to patient’s familiarity with healthcare and ability to navigate the healthcare system or lack thereof. Do not code patient understanding of prognosis here, code under Understanding prognosis and treatment.
Paying for treatment	Comments related to financial stability or lack thereof and stressors related to finances. May be specifically related to medical cost or the associated costs of cancer treatment such as missing work/lost wages, etc
Having self-efficacy	Comments related to belief or lack thereof in one’s ability to navigate illness, stressors, and/or barriers to care. Must mention action.
Maintaining positivity	Comments related to attitude/outlook and its relation to attitude towards cancer care
Usefulness of DT and PL
Perceiving use of DT in practice	Comments related to how the NCCN DT & PL is used clinically and its impact or lack thereof on clinical care
Changing score	Comments related to changing score whether related to knowing cut off, based on sequencing of filling out problem list or any other comments related to changing score.
Measuring the right timeframe	Comments related to the timeframe of distress measured by the NCCN DT & PL and/or suggested changes to this timeframe.
Interesting	Use this code to note any interesting things that come up while you are coding that may not fit into the existing nodes. Also include annotation to record your thoughts