FACT-GP Identifies Survivorship Needs, Assists in Directing Patient Care and Resources

CHICAGO — Researchers found that using Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy – General Population (FACT-GP), a validated quality-of-life (QOL) tool, feasibly and successfully identified survivorship needs and directed patient care and resources. Clinical trial results (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03835052) from the Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pennsylvania, were presented during a poster session at the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting.

The researchers enrolled patients into the cancer survivorship program, which focused on improving quality of life for patients and the creation of an individualized survivorship care plan (SCP), approximately 12 to 18 months after the completion of their cancer therapy. After enrollment, a nurse administered the FACT-GP to assess the patient’s quality of life, including their physical well-being, social well-being, emotional well-being, and functional well-being.

Enrollment into the cancer survivorship program offered patients an individualized survivorship care plan, access to resources for survivorship, care coordination/navigation, and ongoing follow up with a survivorship navigator. Assessment with the FACT-GP was continued every 6 months for 2 years to track patients’ progress and manage their symptoms and issues related to quality of life.

Between October 2018 and April 2019, the researchers referred 219 patients into the cancer survivorship program. Fifty-seven percent (124 patients) were evaluated using the FACT-GP; 52% (64 patients) were categorized as having low distress and these patients received their survivorship care plan over the phone. High distress patients (60 patients [48%]) were referred to the survivorship multidisciplinary clinic and 23 of those patients (36%) received counseling in the survivorship multidisciplinary clinic. Using the FACT-GP social and/or emotional well-being subscale, 37% of patients were deemed to be high-distress with 24% of them agreeing to an oncology behavioral health referral (only 6 of those 11 patients completed that appointment). All survivorship patients had a 4% baseline utilization of the emergency department within 30 days after survivorship care plan creation between January 2018 and September 2018, this decreased to 2.7% after the intervention between October 2018 and April 2019.

“Integrating a validated QOL tool (FACT-GP) as a therapeutic intervention is feasible to identify survivorship needs and direct patient care and resources,” the authors wrote. “Ongoing patient follow-up and reassessment of QOL using the FACT-GP is required for continued data collection.”

Disclosure: Multiple authors declared affiliations with industry. Please refer to the original abstract for a full list of disclosures.

Reference

Adonizio CS, Weeder J, Benner E, et al. QOL assessment integrated into the clinical care of cancer survivors to identify needs and direct care. Poster presented at: 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting; May 31 to June 4, 2019; Chicago, IL. Abstract 6611.